troy NEW YORK

Jorge Silvetti was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he received his diploma in architecture from the University of Buenos Aires. He continued studies at the University of California, Berkeley, receiving his Master of Architecture degree and pursuing post graduate work in the area of architectural theory and criticism. Mr. Silvetti’s architectural practice, Machado and Silvetti Associates, was formed with Rodolfo Machado in 1974.

Jorge SILVETTI
, “Recent Work”
Moday, 04/15
6.00 pm / EMPAC, theater
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
110 8th Street
Troy, New York 12180

troy NEW YORK

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
critic: Brian de LUNA

suckerPUNCH: Describe your project.

Margaret SHAY: My work on the topic “interior envelopes” set forth by our professor began with the study of the plan of Christopher Wren’s unbuilt version of Saint Paul’s cathedral. Through my studies, I extracted the pure geometries that were driving the plan and began calling out the new geometries that resulted due to overlapping, and also exploring those new geometries in three dimensions.

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troy NEW YORK

Peter Eisenman is an American architect, writer and educator whose work has long been informed by reading architecture through a wide range of cultural, intellectual and philosophical references. Famous during the late 1960s for his pioneering houses from his days among the New York Five, he has since then remained at the forefront of architectural discourse through the buildings he has produced, the numerous books he has written, and the lectures and courses he has taught.

Peter EISENMAN
, “A Defense of Architecture”
Wednesday, 04/03
6.00 pm / EMPAC Theater
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
110 8th Street
Troy, New York 12180

troy NEW YORK

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
critic: Casey REHM.

Students explored the image making ability of complex systems through a series of exercises targeted at analyzing and leveraging behaviors expressed through color and mechanical precedents. Students analyzed physical relationships in early industrial automatons and machines to produce logics for the organization of material in a multi-agent systems. Students then explored color relationships in Dutch still life painting, which they then integrated into their mechanical systems as new behaviors.

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troy NEW YORK

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Critic: Andrew SAUNDERS.

suckerPUNCH: Describe your project.

Graham BILLINGS: “Normative Fluidity” is a museum extension that explores the process of transposition between a series of light studies, diagrammatic implications of the “affect,” and their resultant three-dimensional forms and spaces. Diffraction of light through water is known as caustics; a process that was coupled with a camera obscura during my initial research.

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troy NEW YORK

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
critic: Brian de LUNA

suckerPUNCH: Describe your project.

Lisa-Christin LAUE: The beginning of the studio was spent analyzing the interior envelopes of a precedent of our choice from the baroque period. I chose Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza by Borromini for its sophisticated geometric relationships consisting of equilateral triangles and circles.

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troy NEW YORK

Alisa Andrasek is an experimental practitioner and research based educator of architecture and computational processes in design. In 2001 she founded biothing, a cross-disciplinary laboratory that focuses on the generative potential of computational systems for design.

Alisa ANDRASEK (Biothing)

, “Open Synthesis: Increased Resolution Fabric of Architecture”
Monday, 03/04
6.00 pm / EMPAC, theater
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
110 8th Street
Troy, New York 12180

troy NEW YORK

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
critic: Carla LEITAO

suckerPUNCH: Describe your project.

Jillian CRANDALL: For decades, the Olympic games have been used as leverage in cities to generate tourism and to fund infrastructural developments. In actuality, the event more often leaves a disproportionate amount of damage in its wake—environmentally, financially, and infrastructurally. The central problem of the Olympics is that while technology and culture continue to evolve, and while performative limits are transgressed each day, the fundamental nature of the event has remained stagnant.

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troy NEW YORK & turin ITALY

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
critic: Andrew SAUNDERS.

suckerPUNCH: Describe your project.

Davide SCIALÒ: The design of a new façade for the building in which is located the Issey Miyake Pleats Please store was a way to speculate on the architectural consequences of a research on the sartorial tectonics we made during Andrew Sanders’s class.
We focused our research on the increasing relevance of surface as a primary vehicle for architecture to engage contemporary society, coupled with the rapid evolution of customizable computation and fabrication parallels in fashion and architecture.

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new york NEW YORK

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
critic: chris PERRY

sP: Describe your project.

kieran MARTIN: Detroit is the quintessential car city. The lack of public transportation has gained exposure recently and there is currently funding and a design in place for an elevated rail line along Woodward Ave. bigNATURE re-envisions the Woodward corridor through the lens of 1960’s Megastructuralists, challenging popular notions of Ecological Urbanism with drastic urban translations of exotic natural environments.

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