Tuesday, August 10, 2010

mass_Specific: 2008 Emerging Voices Competition

This project is the the brainchild of Aileen Iverson, R.A.  My role on the project could have been loosely defined as "collaborator/concept developer."  Mostly, I developed the working prototype for a mass_Specific website.  Had our entry been selected, it would have gone live.  Alas.  Aileen's latest work on the project may be found at http://mass-specific.blogspot.com/.  The incarnation at the point we submitted our proposal (along with a couple images) follows.

"Recognizing the current paradigm as the Information Age whose byproduct, data, is mined, sorted, sifted and recombined as benefits interested parties, we propose that this system be used to create an equally revolutionary shift in the architectural practice by using data-mining as the basis for creating architectural projects.

In this way we create a prototypical architectural practice that more closely aligns with its pedagogy and is better able to distribute the products of architects, namely analytical research as well as and in equal proportion to building design. 

The name of this architectural-office-prototype is MASS SPECIFIC (M_s).


M_s will create a membership of professionals and use data mining systems to link members based on predictive analysis and user searches to generate projects based on keywords and interests. M_s recognizes that as work and personal lives increasingly occupy the same physical and digital space, they become interrelated. The act of socializing can also generate research and projects.
Architectural education emphasizes critical analytical thinking.  It also stresses thinking broadly, outside of the profession, as the basis of formulating design strategy.  M_s seeks to host interdisciplinary dialogue leading to the assembly of disparate teams on a per project basis.  This is valuable as other (non-spatial) areas of knowledge, when explored through an architectural filter, can inform a spatial study and provide insight into how we understand space and form.  Also, through cross-disciplinary analysis, projects can reveal connections and relationships between fields of study that benefit both, potentially leading to new areas of research."

Sample Project Page
Sample Project Image

No comments:

Post a Comment