Aesthetics & Technology

Intersections of Architecture, Aesthetics & Technology

 

This research group inquires of and engages with the multiplicity of contemporary theoretical debates about the material and immaterial effects of experimentation in architecture. The work encompasses the widest possible range of ethical, political, scientific, environmental, and other approaches to spatial and material practices within and outside of the academy.

By exploring both products and processes, faculty in this area investigate and speculate about historical, contemporary, and future construction methods and material practices, interrogating how they are culturally, aesthetically, and environmentally situated. As the production of knowledge can itself be a transformative endeavor, these scholars question, test, and challenge established histories, norms, and conventions in order to further embolden the discipline’s generative and constitutive power to imagine the world anew.

Associated research includes a broad range of inquiries and speculations: texts, material studies, images, drawings, exhibitions, and built works. Hybridized methods support explorations into the possibilities of analog and digitally fabricated 2d and 3d outputs, installations, and full-scale assemblies in fabrication laboratories and alternative making spaces on- and off-campus. Faculty in this area are widely recognized through their national and international research, exhibition work, lectures, workshops, and publications. 

 

Keywords: design, aesthetics, technology, construction history, spatial practices, material practices, making, analog fabrication, digital fabrication, robotics

Faculty conducting research in this area: Shelby Doyle, Firat Erdim, Peter Goche, Kevin Lair, Tom Leslie, Nick Senske, Mitchell Squire, Rob Whitehead, Andrea Wheeler

Please click on the names of the above faculty members for more information about their respective research areas.