THE DEATH OF ARCHITECTURE

Competition - Honorable Mention

Team _ Gary Polk, Jungjae Suh

_ Published on Archoutloud

Materialism is at a tipping point. The material economy as we know it will soon administer its divorce from geometry, breaking the cultural constraints that are dependent on local and historically precise physical substances from sculpting form and filling volume. Instead, post-human matter - in the case of Lagos and many others, landfill - will become the one and only dominant source of building material. This element brings with it new potential of object production, such as that of new-tech fabrication, that can activate the involvement of the community at large.

Politics of Sport

Sports have politically bifurcated - on the one side of the spectrum, sport has continued to be franchised, being extremely political and furthering the aims of a capitalist economy. On the other hand, sport has also become a driver of economic development in the community, bridging together demographics and social class, activating the city and engineering serendipity. The design of sporting venues has thus mirrored this narrative, From the social and political bondage of the Colosseum to the regime-driven order of the Deutsches Stadion, through the culturally aesthetic Beijing National Stadium, stadiums now yearn for inclusion and social porosity.

Cycle of Matter

Human waste is now comprehended as a product of an otherwise finite world resource(s). What the earth depletes in wood and oil, it in turn digests and defecates as landfill. This ever-present and infinitely regenerative material can be re-materialized in many forms: compressed, kitbashed, disassembled and reassembled, recycled, melted, or simply re-classified as a new synthetic ground, capable of excavation and void.