Transitecture

Transitecture


Transgressive, Transitional, Transitory
Transdisciplinary - Architecture

[email protected]

3 / 5
  • Year
  • Fall 2023, GSAPP
  • Team
  • Instructor: David Benjamin, Adjunct Assistant Professor, GSAPP
  • Location
  • New York, NY

Materializing Transition

By 2040 we will have recognized that the scale of change needed necessitates an entire social paradigm shift. Although many efforts will have to work synergistically, this project focuses on one piece of that paradigm shift centered around the adoption of algae as a core carbon negative material.


On a planetary time scale, algae is responsible for the great oxidation event 2.9 billion years ago, and it will be instrumental in mitigating the effect that humans have had on the ecological environment in just the last short 100 years. The new material economy becomes a protest to the way of living and working that was invented under the too-long enduring influence of Taylorism.
At the planetary scale we see that although seemingly totalizing, these methods of devaluing the individual by placing the knowledge of the means of production within the bureaucratic system have been just a blip. And their time has come to an end.

 




The materialized transition constitutes a non-violent form of sabotage. What the loom factory was for Taylorism, the Algae co-operative is for the new labor paradigm. NYC Local Law 98 of 2030 acknowledges the inextricable link of Embodied Carbon with not just the embodied labor, but the nature of that labor and how it situates within a body, within a collective. With the shifting nature of work modernist office buildings continue to languish vacant. So this legislation targets Office Buildings as the sites for these labor collectives.

The traditional office work is brought into juxtaposition and dialogue with the new material economy. Misalignment creates differentiation but still allows for visibility and proximity.

The site of the first testing grounds is chosen to be at 1251 6th Ave. in Manhattan. Brown algae produces a mucus called fucoidan that is responsible for removing one gigaton (one billion tons) of CO2 from the air every year. Considering the adaptive reuse of the building there is a reduction of 7000 tons of CO2 over 25 years, and the capacity of the production of algae sequesters an additional 2300 tons per year. The diagrammatic conceptualization of the process of work is re-specialized. Each laborer is encouraged to work across different tasks, dispensing with goals of optimization in favor of creating a self-directed daily cadence. It becomes clear that this is a more effective way of working, through joy and inspiration rather than habitual regulation.


The system creates dynamic layers of thresholds. The variants of panel assemblies are enclosure, partition and grafts that raise the R-value of the failing modernist flat facades. Details allow for the tolerance necessary to work between the modes of digital and hand craft. Environments are created with new sensibilities around collective life. Privacy is no longer seen as a penultimate luxury or ideal. Individuals modulate their own spaces through layers of semi-opacity, ductile partition and an attitude of experimentation. There is a rekindling of joy in the work and a sense of belonging.


Hybrid systems of panels aggregate across the possibility field set by the scaffold. Long span structure relies on the tensile strength of the algae fiber fabric, utilizing a bow truss structural logic. Pockets between layers of 3d printed substructure are populated by the networks that service the spaces. The benefits of a regularized grid ground the deployment of 3d printing mechanics that create the substructure, while the ad hoc in situ nature of hand crafted panels allows for adaptability and a visceral, personal connection to the space. The traditional office work is brought into juxtaposition and dialogue with the new material economy. Misalignment creates differentiation but still allows for visibility and proximity. This breeds intrigue. The new materials collective is an open community. Anyone can join, and many do.