Disheveled Geometries

From the Latin rusticationem, and originally defining an unsophisticated rural mentality, the term rustication is used to describe architecture’s most extreme category of surface textures. If, historically, architectural rustication was seen as a less refined manner of shaping material that subsequently retained a rough texture, then the twenty-first-century condition would be the exact reverse. Rustication now takes more effort rather than less, and skill is measured in moving away from architectural smoothness instead of toward it. With the ability to parametrically, algorithmically, and fractally manage matter at increasingly small scales of resolution, this seminar revisits the topic of rustication, where architects design unapologetically contemporary textures that might act in the service of everything from wind dispersal, shading, insulation, water shedding, grip, power generation, physical defense, or pure aesthetic effect. Students study methods of rustication throughout history and use this research as a foundation to design and produce large-scale prototypes. Past seminars dealt with strategies involving carving textures from large homogeneous masses and strategies of complex folding, contouring, aggregation, interlocking, and effects involving new readings between texture and color. This year’s seminar focuses on membranes formed from, and of, a variety of experimental synthetic and biological sources. Students are expected to produce original work that operates at the forefront of the profession, and, accordingly, do research to locate their own work relative to that of a select group of contemporary experimental practitioners. Limited enrollment.