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USC School of Architecture

suckerPUNCH: Describe your project.

Tiffany CHENG: The aim of my 2012 final undergraduate project was to develop a colony of low-tech robots that can sustainably reconstruct and reincarnate space using existing materials. By collecting, melting, and mixing scraps and parts of decimate structures, these robots transform existing materials into new hybrid composites, reallocating otherwise unusable matter into inhabitable spaces.

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University of Southern California
critic: Roland WAHLROOS-RITTER

suckerPUNCH: Describe your project.

Katie AMRINE, Meaghan CAMP, Morgan FENG, Shelley FU, Saeed GHODS, Peter JEUNG, Jonathan LEE, Andrea MENDOZA, David NICHOLSON, Krithika PRABHAKARAN, Zenah SAKAAMINI, Eugene SU, Vicky WONG, & Graham WOOD: The Glass Pavilion is an investigation of the aesthetic and structural qualities of glass. The use of polycarbonate, a transparent material with many of the same structural properties as glass, allowed us to create a self-supporting structure on a smaller budget.

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University of Southern California

suckerPUNCH: Describe your project.

Behnaz FARAHI BOUZANJANI: How might we imagine a space that—over time—can build up an understanding of its users through their bodily gestures, visual expressions and rituals of behavior, and respond accordingly? In other words, how might we envision a genuinely interactive space whose form and physical configuration can respond to and learn from its users, and vice versa?

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Jose Sanchez is an architect, programmer, and game designer based in London. He is partner at Bloom Games, start-up built upon the BLOOM project, winner of the WONDER SERIES hosted by the City of London for the London 2012 Olympics. He is the director of the Plethora Project, a research and learning project investing in the future of on-line open-source knowledge.

Jose SANCHEZ
, “Design = Play”
Moday, 04/04
12.30 pm / Watt One
USC School of Architecture
Los Angeles, California 90089

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“Informed Form” is an ongoing research initiative that explores the relevance of form as a product of reciprocity between geometry (form), force (performance), matter (organization), and craft (fabrication). It extends the design research legacies of analogue form finding in the works of Otto, Gaudi, Isler, and Candela by exploring digital and analogue techniques for discovering form through variable material and geometric organizations and force simulations, while simultaneously considering the design opportunities being afforded by advances in computation and fabrication technologies.

“Informed Form” Graduate Design Studio Exhibition, USC SOA w/ Alvin HUANG
Wednesday, 12/19
2.00-9.00 pm / Design Matters Gallery
11527 West Pico Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90064

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shanghai CHINA

The design of this temporary installation reinterprets the traditional Chinese garden to activate the roof terrace of the MoCA Shanghai as an undulating and responsive multi-layered landscape. The upper (canopy) layer simultaneously produces gradient spatial conditions and framed viewing portals which curate views of the surrounding hi-rise towers, while the lower (landscape) layer articulates a series of back-lit sculptural ground forms which subdivide the terrace and provide atmospheric effect through responsive color-changing LED lighting effects. Inspired by the work of Frei Otto, the entire project extends his body of design research into physical and digital form-finding processes for minimal surface structures through dynamic mesh relaxation techniques.

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USC School of Architecture’s Grad Open House, a chance to learn about the school’s programs, connect with faculty and current students, and tour the school’s facilities.

RSVP: Laarni Cutidioc at archgrad@usc.edu or 213.821.2168

USC Grad Open House
Monday, 10/22
5.00 pm / Watt Hall, Suite 204
USC, School of Architecture
Los Angeles, California 90089

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USC Wins Prestigious NASA Research Award for the Moon and Mars — As NASA’s Curiosity rover continues its exploration of Mars, USC professors have won a highly prestigious NASA research award to develop new robotic construction technologies for building structures on the Moon and Mars. Professors Behrokh Khoshnevis (Engineering), Anders Carlson (Architecture), Neil Leach (Architecture) and Madhu Thangavelu (Astronautics) have been awarded a Phase 2 NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) research award for a project titled “ISRU Based Robotic Construction Technologies for Lunar and Martian Infrastructure.”

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University of Southern California
advisors: alvin HUANG & kara BARTELT

suckerPUNCH: Describe your project.

john FARRACE: The project focuses on a social extreme of digital natives who have become disinterested with normal face to face communication not out of preoccupation, but out of boredom: browsing one hundred of your friend’s pictures in a minute while listening to your favorite song with your iPhone six inches away from your face is way more engaging than standing talking to somebody for one minute.

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Artists: tim CHENG, enoch CHOW, erin CUEVAS, pouya GOSHAYESHI, chase HEARN, golnar IRANPOUR, aaron MALMEDAL, & joyce TSAI

suckerPUNCH: Describe your project.

Sheer Pressure: “Sheer Pressure” is one of three projects completed during USC’s annual “Top Fuel” workshop, an intensive one-week fabrication charette. This year the workshop focused on pneumatic systems, under the advisement of Achim Menges and Thomas Auer. Our group - composed of eight upper-division students - studied the relationship between pneus and constraining tensile forces. Our initial study models looked at the many ways air-inflated structures could puncture through fabric, and generate different lighting effects.

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