Research Studio 6: Techno Relics: Materiality and Fabrication in the Age of the Human Epoch

University of Calgary, Masters of Architecture, School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, Winter 2021

​Instructed by Sumer Singh
Students
​Anagha Patil
Danielle Kim
Gordon Ngo
Joseph Crawford
Lealyn San Juan
Lili Wang
Mehak Sidhu
Ugonna Ohakim
Zachary Ward
Zainab Saif Ahmed

"Svyambhav, the Sanskrit word for the 'self-born' aesthetic, as distinct from rupa, the man-made form imposed through human artifice .. " - Anish Kapoor: Making Emptiness, by Homi K. Bhabha and Pier Luigi Tazzi 

Techno Relics is an architectural applied research studio emphasizing a design based directed research. A range of architectural, material, software, and fabrication methodologies are proposed broadly engaging a critical understanding of the Human Epoch and its impact on Earth's geology. Students are challenged to apply their individual backgrounds and interests accumulated throughout the previous semesters to increased levels of precision, intensity, rigour, critical and creative thought, and ultimately architectural design. 

​Research Description 
"Techno Relics: Applied Research in Fabrication and Materiality in the Age of the Human Epoch" examines the discipline's potential in applying research based physical and digital tools to advance our understanding of material compositions and fabrication. This is done within the context of the unofficial Human Epoch, also known as the Anthropocene era where human activity through technological means has started to have a significant impact on the planet's climate and ecosystems. 

The irreversible alteration of the Earth's upper surface requires a shift in our understanding of the traditional system of organic vs synthetic. Man made materials have become ubiquitous and a massively distributed part of the environment at various scales. Nature has taken its course and swallowed these synthetic materials to create new compositions of naturally occurring complex conglomerations, thereby blurring the boundaries between the agency of man, nature, and technology. 
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Critical questions emerge for architects and the new materials available for us to use. If the agency of nature is inclusive of manmade materials, then our discipline too must reconsider its own boundaries and evolve our capacity to design and fabricate with these technofossils. There are new opportunities available for architecture within the blurring of the material nature for the creation of hybrid strategies.

This studio will familiarize itself with concepts such as the "Great Acceleration", "Anachronism", "Technofossils". These concepts in conjunction with others that may come up throughout the research will be used to seek and establish new paradigms of thought and action in the Human Epoch. What this means for architecture will be tested at the scale of materiality and fabrication strategies through applied research and hybrid physical outcomes.