SEAMS: Crafting An Architecture

Keynote 4 | 4:10 - 5:10 PM

1 AIA LU

The path that one walks as a Black architect or designer has many seams, or places that one improvises and stitches together to make a story, or really understand where one is in the world and how to make sense of things that cannot under any circumstances make any sense and never did. There are many gaps and lacunae that are bridged by these seams. Working along these gaps constructs a place of creativity, and ways of making that integrate fragments from the past but in fact also project a future. Davis will present prior and current works in computational textiles or textiles that use sensors or microcontrollers or simply the natural properties of the textile itself to communicate some information to people. These projects are examples of soft architectures and work along a seam.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

1. To present an idea of design computing in architecture as a technological system that can register design in relation to specific bodies in specific places engaging specific social, cultural and political constructions.  
2. To present ways of working with communities that can help tell their stories about their environment as well as introduce communities to other invisible structures being created that shape the environment.
3. To present ways in which computational textiles impact architecture and create other understandings and new opportunities for architecture
4. To expose audience to consideration of urban structures that are not physical, but invisible carried on electromagnetic waves that create a new urbanism that needs attention.