_ thisisamountain
tag: [work] [automavision] [phygital] [digi]
date: 20201117
classification: 2020 SCI-Arc graduate thesis
advisor: Peter Testa & Devyn Weiser
cultural agent: Marrikka Trotter
“From the side, a whole range; from the end, a single peak; far, near, high, low, no two parts alike. Why can't I tell the true shape of Lu-shan (mountain Lu)? Because I myself am in the mountain.”
— Su Shi 蘇軾, Written on the Wall at West Forest Temple 題西林壁
This body of work emerged from the conditions of quarantine, when the computer became almost the sole interface for architectural design and physical construction was displaced into digital processes. In response, thisisamountain develops a workflow for constructing a digital mountain from physically connected parts through curation and simulation. Rather than using the computer simply to represent an object, the project asks how computational procedures might participate in constructing and perceiving it.
Phygital construction blurs distinctions between physical and digital material, form, and physics. Within this framework, architectural design is less concerned with predicting a final outcome than with constructing workflows through which unexpected forms can emerge. Digital tools are therefore not treated simply as instruments of execution, but are intentionally used—and misused—as participants in the design process.
Digital material is approached through computational logic rather than conventional material categories. A digital light source functions as a separator: different ranges of brightness correspond to different material assignments across a single asset. A digital camera operates as a mask, creating conditions in which physical and digital materials intersect, overlap, and dissolve into one another.
The asset pool is assembled from found objects sourced from the internet, donated objects from peers, three-dimensionally scanned elements from daily life, and fragments recycled from previous projects. Rather than seeking stylistic consistency, the collection preserves the differences between these sources. Through digital upcycling, objects are modified and recombined without being synthesized into a single formal language; their distinct origins remain legible within the accumulating mountain.
"Cultural production in the third millennium is totally flat. The information we make and share travels through media that lack hierarchy or centrality. There is no principal authority, no recognized arbitrator, and no centralized archive." - JACK SELF
Responding to this condition of the “big flat now,” stored objects are organized through curation rather than formal unification. Each undergoes differentiated modifications in form, texture, and material before entering a shared scene governed by physical simulation. Curation therefore becomes a design operation: selecting, modifying, positioning, and allowing heterogeneous objects to accumulate without requiring them to resolve into a singular composition.
A live-stream interface foregrounds processes of manipulation and construction that would ordinarily remain backstage. Each object carries information about its source, material treatment, simulation parameters, and gravitational orientation, allowing accumulation and presentation to occur simultaneously.
The mountain is conceived not as a finite object but as an expandable world. A physical film set—composed of model stands, green screen, lighting, and tracking infrastructure—allows backgrounds, viewpoints, and objects to be continually replaced, recombined, and recorded as the mountain grows over time.
The cameras operate within a feedforward-feedback loop, becoming active agents within the system rather than passive instruments of representation. By partially detaching viewpoint from deliberate human composition, the system generates perspectives that a designer might not consciously choose.
There is no single composer or conductor determining the final image. Instead, the project distributes decisions across curated objects, simulation, camera parameters, physical constraints, and human interpretation. The resulting views are neither entirely authored nor entirely autonomous: they emerge from a system in which control has been deliberately made incomplete.
thisisamountain ultimately argues for design through indeterminacy. Under conditions shaped by multiple constraints and contingencies, the architect does not disappear but assumes a different role: constructing the procedures, limits, and relationships through which other forms of agency can operate. Design becomes an act of seeing and recombining existing information while accepting that its outcome cannot be fully known in advance.
