This exhibition presents the work of the 2015-16 Master of Architecture II Graduate Design Studio, focusing on Thesis projects but presenting a selection of work from the entire academic year. The projects represent an approach that, without prescribed boundaries, challenges the established frontiers of architecture through critical and visionary responses to contemporary issues, while simultaneously thinking critically and re-thinking architectural discourse itself. Rather than a short-term problem solving approach, the studio emphasizes research as an integral part of the design process, making process itself the essential operational realm within which potential transformations can be discovered and revealed.
The Thesis work represents individual explorations into issues critical to architectural and urban discourse at the present time, without pre-established disciplinary or spatial boundaries. The projects address a myriad of critical issues affecting architectural practice and theory today, ranging from urban theory to the present condition of globalization and the continual emergence of new scientific developments and technologies. Drawing and other representational media are emphasized as essential tools for thought in the process of exploration and transformation, not just as presentation techniques.
Thesis subjects include The City through Film: The Virtual and the Real, Hide and Seek: Surveillance in Manhattan, The Cosmic Order – Gyeongbokgung Palace, Algae as Habitat, Performative Space: Echo in Pompeii, Ephemeral Domesticity for a Transient Culture, Accessible Housing, Istanbul through Dante’s Inferno, and Geopolitical Space: Meridians and Time Lines.
Opening reception on Thursday, September 15 at 6:30.
