AGENCY OF MATERIALS

The Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc)'s X-Lab is a post-graduate initiative that studies emerging systems and technologies in a proto-architectural environment. It is a rigorous experimental program focused on both data-based and physical investigations into the rapidly evolving fields of digital design, innovative fabrication methodologies, and new building systems.

Rheologic is an investigation into the agency of material in contemporary design practice.

Through rhelogical material experimentation, the project examines the role of intrinsic material properties as a driver of architectural form, rather than an obstacle to be overcome in the realization of pre-cognizant design.

The project uses robotic tooling as a means of implementation in which the limits of mechanical tool design are tested against the unpredictable nature of the viscous and the temporal. The investigation ranges from laboratory testing to a speculative deployment in a real-time dynamic building facade.

Form is no longer pre-cognizant, but the result of an algorithmic approach to the choreography of material manipulation.