SUMMARY

COURSE TOPICS AND STRUCTURE

Ephemeral Facades: The Matter of Resilience poses a dynamic relationship between the ephemeral and the resilient. This proposition frames a series of material explorations catalyzed with electricity. The workshop experience will include presentations, demos, discussions, studio sessions, reflections and active documentation.

TEACHING FORMAT

Participatory morning sessions introduce techniques and processes for exploring fire, water and air, combined with material transformations activated by electricity and the arduino. Afternoon sessions are focused on open studio explorations and proposed relationships between resilience, matter, and ephemerality. Evening open studio times allow for the time-based nature of some of the modalities that we will explore and the open explorations that will personalize your investigations of ephemeral facades

COURSE OBJECTIVES

Learn basic principles and techniques of working with materials, electricity, and time
Experiment with principles and techniques for making materials appear, disappear, and re-appear
Explore temporal relationships that involve electricity as a catalyst for material transformation
Develop strategies for architectural thinking that prioritize the ephemeral
Create a series of prototypes that embodied the potential of the ephemeral as a strategy for resilience

ASSIGNMENTS

Students will complete and document daily material sketches that explore and iterate upon basic techniques for ephemeral transformations. Each evening students will post photos, video, audio recordings, and reflections of these daily processes to the class blog. Presented as a progression of material sketches, concepts, and prototypes each student will also write a short statement that reveals their propositions for ephemeral facades as material strategies for resilience.