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Metabolistic Assemblies: Practices of Ecological Return is a third-year graduate architecture studio that investigates how architecture sources its material palette through globalized supply chains. Working with alternative materials derived from the studio site, students are asked to rethink the way we get building materials and the relationship between architecture and nature.
The studio is led by Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen, the Cret Chair of Architecture at Weitzman and professor at the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen where she founded and runs CITA [Centre for IT and Architecture]. She is supported by Teaching Assistant Nicholas Houser, and Mahsa Masalegoo, a robotics specialist; both earned a Master of Science in Design with a concentration in robotics and autonomous systems from Penn.
Students began the semester conducting experiments with 3D-printed cellulose. They then developed resource maps of the site, which is located along the southern coast of Lake Ontario in upstate New York, based on their site visit during Fall 2025 Travel Week. Their design proposals are intended to be built with 3D-printed biogenic polymers, accounting for the entire lifecycle of the building from construction to decay to repair.
Work by Camille Escobar, Ricardo Alvarado, Ruby Nwaebube
A 3D-printed biogenic material is deposited atop timber scaffolding, repairing the natural landscape. “We want to situate the site as not just a building, but a series of interconnected systems that extend far beyond its boundaries,” says Ramsgaard Thomsen.
Work by Jenny Li and Jessy Xu
A site analysis identified local ecological drivers such as aquatic plants, shoreline vegetation, agricultural by-products and mineral aggregates that can be ingredients of biogenic material used as resources in the mix of a new 3d-printed polymer. “What resources are available locally?” Ramsgaard Thomsen asked, “How are they impacted by social or climate issues?”
Work by Camille Escobar, Ricardo Alvarado, Ruby Nwaebube
Timber Tectonic assembly of structure in need of reparation
Work by Sissi Zhang and Spencer Relihan
Tectonic assembly with biogenic material integration, showing tool path profiles and strategies for connection. “We want to expand how we think about circularity through these integrated processes. One of the key inquiries is how these practices work together,” says Ramsgaard Thomsen.”
Photo: Ruby Nwaebube
Students collected material from the site to use in the experimental polymers. “We studied a landscape where both land and water ecologies are shaped by a shifting mix of native species, long established non‐native species, and more recent arrivals whose presence is closely tied to human activity,” Ramsgaard Thomsen says.
Photo: Ruby Nwaebube
Bark collected on-site being 3D printed in the Robotics Lab at Weitzman
