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CANOPIES TO CITIES: THE DEVELOPMENT WITHIN EMTECH Mike Weinstock and Evan Greenberg, directors of the Emergent Technologies and Design MArch program, trace the evolution of research within EmTech. Interviewed by current EmTech student Mary Polites.
Wave Canopy (2009) and Edible Infrastructures (2011) represent the range of research scales in the programme - from a material
system to an urban system; work produced as part of the EmTech programme.
Over the programme’s lifespan, EmTech’s research has focused on the conceptual structures of emergence and natural systems, such as the forms, anatomies, energy flows and behaviours that comprise a system. From these relationships we then develop a logic and apply this to architectural elements such as canopies, pavilions and other performative surfaces. The similarity shared amongst these applications is a method that is adaptable to various scales. While material and performance do not always scale up, the programme tests the logic and relationships between hierarchies in complex systems and how these may be applied to architecture. By these logics, the development of the programme has evolved beyond the initial output of EmTech research, into a deeper understanding of complex material and urban systems. To review how this development in scale of method has evolved, I interviewed the Studio Master Evan Greenberg and Course Director Mike Weinstock. Evan brought a perspective as a former Emtech student in 2007/2008 and Mike provided a global view of the direction and pedagogy of the programme and how it has developed since its inception.