SPATIAL GENEALOGIES

Instructor Chris Falliers, MAAD-HTX Proseminar, 2020

The MAAD Proseminar: Spatial Genealogies is a seminar/workshop in which post-professional students in the Master of Advanced Architectural Design (MAAD) program explore the network of influences, connections, and tangents that inform advanced design practice. Leveraging previous or ongoing work in one of three MAAD concentrations, History Theory Experiments, Urban Works, or Digital Craft, students trace the lineage of a topic in formal, historical, and conceptual terms. Students research precedents and disciplinary context, building a deeper academic and professional understanding of one aspect of their own MAAD work. Individually or in groups, students develop a speculative artifact that communicates knowledge to, and provokes discussion with, a larger audience. This ‘device’ or ‘platform’ to communicate research in a public/institutional space is seen as an act of design.

For the Spring 2020 class, students chose to work collectively on the heightened understanding of, and engagement with, non-human subjectivities. This brought a fourth perspective focused on themes of urban ecologies, social organizing, and collectivity. The collective design is seen as a call to action and provocation on how to live with, and for, non-human species.

MAAD Proseminar Students, Spring 2020:

Jiries Alali, Leandra Burnett, Donna Mena, Kurt Pelzer, Sharan Shivkumar Saboji