STUFFING THE SCHOOL
Undergrad studio workshop taught at
Tecnologico de Monterrey in Queretaro, Mexico
Instructor team: Celia Chaussabel, Katie Rotman, Cynthia Deng
Year: 2024
Architecture students are accustomed to certain spaces of learning: studios, fabrication labs, computer labs, seminar spaces...Though the spaces themselves dictate our experience, the “stuff” that fills these spaces also affects on how we participate in our educational environments: the desks, chairs, and drawing tables in our studios; the pin-up boards and meeting tables that punctuate our seminar spaces; the workbenches and storage cabinets in our fabrication labs—they all dictate how and what we learn. How can we project toward a better future without first calling into question the stuff—tools, furniture, arrangements—that hold up the status quo?
Throughout this two-week collective build workshop, we redesigned the typical “meeting table” that is usually found in architecture studios using objects found in the university’s trash piles. These objects, their form, their backstory, and past function were all considered, then misused in the new design. When viewed with a surrealist lens, they brought unexpected affordances to our imaginative and radical ideas about the future of architecture schools.
The table, named the “Gathercraft” can be opened, closed and disassembled. The found objects became both the container bins and the seats around the table.
Throughout this two-week collective build workshop, we redesigned the typical “meeting table” that is usually found in architecture studios using objects found in the university’s trash piles. These objects, their form, their backstory, and past function were all considered, then misused in the new design. When viewed with a surrealist lens, they brought unexpected affordances to our imaginative and radical ideas about the future of architecture schools.
The table, named the “Gathercraft” can be opened, closed and disassembled. The found objects became both the container bins and the seats around the table.
Inventory of found objects: a staircase, PVC tubes, purple seats, podiums, metal frames
Designing in the studio, with the found objects, a physical model, and a digital model simutaneously
Construction and the test-fitting of the different found parts.
The deployed GatherCraft full of stuff: supplies for physical models, found objects for future constructions...
The GatherCraft disassembled, ready to be transported to a future site of an architecture studio