1. Craft Practices and Computation
The vision of this work is to conduct inquiry in craft for future technological, social, and cultural innovations, inventions, and advancements. I use design/ making, computation, and ethnographic methods as forms of inquiry and study into the possibilities for new tools, frameworks, and methods. Two questions that drive this work are:
- How might computational ideas, methods, and technologies repair craft + cultural practices? and
- How might practices and labors in craft cultures repair computational ideas and theoretical frameworks?
2. Critical Computation
This work involves recognizing and revealing the social, political, and historical entanglements of computational systems and technologies developed and used in design and construction. Some questions include:
- What critical tools, theories, and processes might we make part of our practices, pedagogy, and research to consider questions of justice?
- How are computational design tools, infrastructures, and practices implicated in systems of oppression?
- What new approaches, tools, and frameworks can repair computational design such that it refuses to remain ignorant of the structures that shape our theories and technologies?
- What role can design computation play in revealing questions of power, access, and ethics?
I use a Situated Computations approach which is an approach to computational design (research, practice, and pedagogy) that grounds our tools, methods, and theories in the social world by acknowledging the historical, cultural, and material contexts of design and making. It responds to a setting’s social and technological infrastructure and refuses to remain ignorant of the social and political structures that shape them.
3. Lightweight Structures
Work in this area takes a conceptual approach to “lightweight.” Based on the philosophy of Lucio Blandini, we consider lightweight beyond the physical to include using technology for structures to be light in terms of the environment, biomaterials, fabrication methods, waste, passive energy, community, etc. In this area, we bring together design and fabrication technologies, advanced materials, sustainability, culture, and more for the creation of lightweight structures. We conduct inquiries into materials, systems, tectonics, construction, and more. Close connections and applications are made in architecture, construction, and dancing sculptures.
4. Heritage + Computation
Work in this area involves using and critiquing computational and digital technologies to conduct inquiry in heritage for new and imagined understandings and possibilities.
5. Artificial Intelligence and Design
In this area, we explore and conduct inquiries into the development and use of machine learning systems and artificial intelligence in architectural theory, practice, and pedagogy. Here we also use the Situated Computations framework as a point of departure for a new framework when it comes to data and its use in automated systems. Questions include:
- What machine learning systems and algorithms
- What are the implications for the humanities in architectural culture with the use of AI systems in design?
- What might AI systems in architecture tell us about human intelligence, society, and culture?