Monsters and Ghosts

A studio in two competitions – or, coming at the same problem from two different ways.

The intellectual emphasis of this studio is our relationship with non-humans in the Anthropocene. The technical emphasis is on form and detail and the representational emphasis is on preparing ideas for design competitions. The key text for this studio is: Tsing A., et al. Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet: Ghosts and Monsters.

This first project asks three things:

• First, choose a non-human species as a client (any species, any size, anywhere) and identify its needs (energy, shelter, procreation, movement, interaction, etc.).
• Second, design (or redesign) a place, a structure, a thing, and/or a process that satisfies some or all of your client’s needs.
• Third, your design must, in some way, increase human awareness of and empathy towards your client’s existence.

The second project is a hypothetical competition to create a memorial to the 6^th extinction. You will need to choose your site and decide how to commemorate an event that has happened, is happening and is also yet to happen.