POST-ANTHROPOCENE
WELCOME TO ARC920 - FOURTH YEAR OPTION STUDIO
“...I cannot see evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I
cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the
express intention of feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice...”
- Charles Darwin,
The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin
Architects are optimistic as they project a future where humanity can engage their built ideas in daily life. This studio challenges students to project into a future without humanity built upon the remnants of daily life. During the Anthropocene, the Earth has been a victim of many anthropogenic factors that have had an indelible impact on its biosphere and environment. That harbingers of an imminent mass extinction are either teetering on the edge or already have passed the point of no return speaks to the inevitability that humans will become extinct just as the other 99% of life on the planet. These symptoms range from the increased UV-B radiation and acidification and anoxia of the oceans to the presence of toxins in the atmosphere and a global rise in temperature and water levels. The Anthropocene will mark human extinction. The Earth will remain and move forward in a Post-Anthropocene state bearing the impact of human settlement. From the detritus of synthetic chemicals and substances in the biosphere to the monuments of civilization made of materials that will remain for millennia, life must emerge and evolve within a framework of this grave new world.
This studio presents students an opportunity to integrate advanced simulation, modeling, and representation skills from current and future architectural praxis in conjecturing the world’s new ecosystems, organisms, and emergent, intertwined relationships among them. Architectural design theories and precedents ranging from the Emergence group through to interactive design will be complemented by a multidisciplinary integration of resources including biomimetics and robotics. Design precedents from artists (Theo Jansen through to Geoff Darrow) and architects (Rachel Armstrong to Hernan Diaz Alonso) will serve as a catalyst for design discourse.
Steeped in discussions from parametric logic and characteristics of life through to evolutionary design matrices and digital ecosystems, students will engage digital tools in developing their design projects. The studio projects serve as opportunities for students to creatively explore a myriad of complex design facets in the new ecosystems they will develop in the Post-Anthropocene era. Projects will encourage discourse at a hypothetical and hyper-theoretical level that will mandate extensive research, design knowledge, synthesis, and digital investigation.
