PARAsite

Jose Sanchez Joins USC

Neil Leach — Sun, 05 May 2013 04:10:42 +0000

Jose Sanchez has been appointed to a Tenure Track post at USC starting in August 2013. Jose is an architect/programmer/game designer based in London. He is a partner at Bloom Games, a 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 (www.plethora-project.com), a research and learning project investing in the future of on-line open-source knowledge. The project has over 100 videos and an open-source library of code that has been visited by over 400.000 people since it was founded in 2011. His background in computational design and digital manufacturing is linked with Alisa Andrasek to Biothing, where he has been one of the principal designers since 2009.

USC Projects Shortlisted for Architizer Awards

Neil Leach — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 01:43:46 +0000

Two projects designed by USC Professors have been shortlisted for the 2013 Architizer Awards. The Bloom installation, designed by USC Professor Doris Sung in collaboration with Ingalill Walhroos-Ritter and Mathew Melnyk, is a 6 m tall installation that uses a kinetic skin made out of thermally-responsive metal. Chelsea Workspace, a home office designed by USC Professor Alvin Huang of Synthesis Design + Architecture, was given an honorable mention.

The Science of Fiction

Neil Leach — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 01:04:40 +0000

USC Architecture students will be joining colleagues from the USC School of Cinematic Arts for a one day workshop, The Science of Fiction: World Building in Action, on Saturday 13 April 2013. The event is being organised by the 5-D Institute, a transdisciplinary design practice, whose members include Zaha Hadid, Greg Lynn, Evan Douglis, Hernan Diaz-Alonso, and a number of creative professionals from other disciplines, such as Thomas Demand, Chuck Hoberman, Doug Coupland and Peter Frankfurt. The 5-D Institute was founded by USC Professor Alex McDowell, the production designer who was responsible for a number of well known technologically charged films, such as Minority Report, and who has also worked on the robotic opera, Death and the Powers. The students will be working in teams to create an alternate visionary world, a near future reality that could lie just around the corner if only given the right impetus: http://5dinstitute.org/events/science-of-fiction

Interim Reviews

Neil Leach — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 01:37:53 +0000

Reinforced Latex Study by Guoyu Hu and Kai Ding

An interim review of the work from the computational studio run by Biayna Bogosian and Victoria Coaloa, and the Fabrication Studio run by Rob Ley was held in Upper Rosendin on Friday 5 April. The final review will be held in May as part of the Blue Tape event.

Manuel De Landa Lecture Series

Neil Leach — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 01:22:50 +0000

USC Adjunct Professor Manuel De Landa is currently giving his intensive 2 week lecture series, ‘Theories of Self-Organization and the Dynamics of Cities’. In addition to his work on cities, Professor De Landa is also well known for his work on digital design. All his USC lectures on cities are available on line, as is his USC lecture on the use of the Genetic Algorithm in Architecture, ‘Simulated Evolution in Architecture’:

Mark Burry Lecture

Neil Leach — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 17:59:26 +0000

Mark Burry will be lecturing in Harris 101 in USC at 6pm on Wednesday 10 April 2013. Mark is the founding Director of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University’s Design Research Institute (DRI). Established in 2008, DRI positions design research’s role as an explorer and tester of design options focusing on the challenges of urbanization and growing cities of the future. Prior to 2012, Mark was the Director of RMIT’s state-of-the-art Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory (SIAL) where he led the establishment of a holistic spatial design research environment dedicated to all aspects of contemporary spatial design. The laboratory focuses on collocated design research and undergraduate and postgraduate teaching with associated advanced computer applications and the rapid prototyping of ideas. He is also consultant architect on the Sagrada Familia project.

USC Polycarbonate Pavilion

Neil Leach — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 18:33:44 +0000

A group of second year students from the USC School of Architecture has completed the design and construction of a 50 foot polycarbonate pavilion outside Watt Hall under the direction of Professor Roland Wahlroos-Ritter. For further details see: http://www.arch2o.com/2b-glass-pavilion-university-of-southern-california

lectures in Sharjah and Tehran

Neil Leach — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 21:04:27 +0000

USC professor Neil Leach will be giving a lecture on ‘Desiring Machines’ at the American University of Sharjah at 5pm on Tuesday 12 March and two lectures on ‘Scripting the Future’ and ‘Fabricating the Future’ in Tehran on Saturday 16 March 2013.

Jose Sanchez Lecture

Neil Leach — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 05:51:14 +0000

Jose Sanchez is giving a lecture in Watt 1 today at 12.30pm. Jose is an architect/programmer/game designer based in London. He is a partner at Bloom Games, a 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 (www.plethora-project.com), a research and learning project investing in the future of on-line open-source knowledge. The project has over 100 videos and an open-source library of code that has been visited by over 400.000 people since it was founded in 2011. His background in computational design and digital manufacturing is linked with Alisa Andrasek to Biothing, where he has been one of the principal designers since 2009.

Playfields Interim Review

Neil Leach — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 00:20:36 +0000

Bi-directional wave failures causing apertures by Yunyun Huang

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ6BIGUYCiE&list=PLZHGNqLnraJEGn-Rw5B96ARkpGWI3EnKr

An interim review of the PLAYfields graduate studio took place in the Lower Rosendin Gallery on Wednesday 13 February with two USC faculty members, Nefeli Chatzimina and Neil Leach, as the invited guest critics. PLAYfields is a post-professional graduate studio co-taught by Biayna Bogosian and Victoria Coaloa that investigates iterative computation and fabrication techniques to propose temporary performance pavilions for The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA’s summer event series. Students are experimenting with collections of material and programmatic attributes to transform the museum courtyard into an enveloping and yet interactive space in both macro and micro scales.