_ Virginia Tech 21FA He foundation lab : be a hoarder like me
tag: [teaching] [phygital] [digi] [phys] [virginiatech]
date: 20211208
internal link: He foundation lab student team projects
external link: archdesign.caus.vt.edu; instagram.archdesignvt;
class: 2021 fall VT first year foundation lab
instructor: Nero Chenxuan He
review guests: Aaron Betsky, Margarita McGrath, Chris Pritchett, Shadi Abdel Haleem, Andrew Gipe-Lazarou, Benjamin Pennell, Isaac Mangual-Martinez, Miranda Shugars, Bill Green, Shanice Aga
students: Adam Greenfield, Annie Potter, Brynn Lyons, Daphne Longmire, Ellis Pitts, Fernando Rosales, Ilan Farahi, Jeremiah Covington, Julia Briner, Julia Groves, Justin Stange, Kathleen Senus, Kobe Stokes, Maddy Privett, Noah LeCain, Raul Calderon-Merlos, Rielle Abellera, Ryan Barrett, Sabina Osterman, Sofia Llanos
Foundation Design Laboratory I is the first design studio taken by undergraduate students at the Virginia Tech School of Architecture and Design. The course introduces fundamental design concepts and provides a framework for systematically exploring these ideas through visual, physical, and verbal modes of communication. Framed by the ongoing theme of upcycling digital waste, the studio investigates the exchange between digital space, model space, and physical space.
01. Asset Accumulation
Operating within what is often described as the condition of the “Big Flat Now,” where information circulates without hierarchy or central authority, students are asked to collect, document, and archive both physical and digital objects. Using photogrammetry software, each student produces a digital twin of every physical object collected. These digital assets are then individually archived using multiple parameters, including dimensions, form, scale, physical weight, and digital weight.
02. Cart of Things
Students collaborate in teams of two or three, sharing resources and archived objects to form a collective collection. Using curatorial strategies, each object is relocated and redefined within a digitally modeled shopping cart, framing the process as an upcycling of digital waste. The presentation emphasizes the still life qualities of the overflowing cart through digital renderings and vector drawings. Each object is developed using the concept of phygital materials, understood as emerging from the exchange between physical material behavior and digital material simulation.
03. Para-Market
Students collaborate in larger teams of four to six. They reuse and upcycle all objects and drawings produced in earlier exercises to construct a physically built parafictional market. The presentation connects digital model space, physical model space, and exhibition space through a live stream interface. By exchanging front of house presentation with back of house production, the studio reframes upcycling within architectural and design discourse and proposes a new format of representation.
Students collaborate in larger teams of four to six. They reuse and upcycle all objects and drawings produced in earlier exercises to construct a physically built parafictional market. The presentation connects digital model space, physical model space, and exhibition space through a live stream interface. By exchanging front of house presentation with back of house production, the studio reframes upcycling within architectural and design discourse and proposes a new format of representation.
