Brick: Thick/Thin This studio explores a material paradox that the discipline of architecture has constructed the idea of brick and its status as a contemporary building material. The notion of thickness has been replaced by a desire for the opposite: transparency and thinness. The studio examines the role that this ubiquitous material plays in an increasingly global and digitized world of material production. Research reconsiders archetypal brick detailing techniques such as battering, corbeling, buttressing, vaulting, piercing, and racking, and forms an iterative process of digital surface-making and hands-on prototyping. The studio shifts to the design of the Taller Metropolitana de Bogotá (TAMBO), a regional design center and creative live/ work incubator, in the historic center of Colombia’s “City of Brick.” As one of South America’s most culturally progressive and economically maligned cities, the informal nature of Bogotá’s material industries is out of sync with an emerging creative industry. La Macarena becomes the site of confluence between historic architecture, modernist plans of urban renewal, and contemporary programs of material production.
Studio Instructor Frano Violich Teaching Associate Davis Owen Students Nada Alqallaf, Aleksis Bertoni, Hyojin Kwon, Hongjie Li, Jennifer Shen, Tianze Tong, YaShin Tzeng, Emerald Hanguang Wu, Haoxiang Yang, Huopu Zhang, Pu Zhang, Yuting Zhang, Yubai Zhou Mid-Review Critics Lorena Bello, Natalia Escobar Castrillón, Brandon Clifford, Jonathan Dessi-Olive, Iman Fayyad, Caitlin Mueller, Mark Mulligan, Cristina Parreño, Paul Richardson, Alex Timmer, Sasa Zivkovic Final Review Critics Stephen Cassell, Natalia Escobar Castrillón, Kenneth Frampton, Mariana Ibanez, Zhang Ke, Sheila Kennedy, John May, Carlos Pardo, Camilo Restrepo Ochoa, Paul Richardson, Neyran Turan