Assistant Professors Glenn Wilcox and Anca Trandafirescu, founders of Ann Arbor-based practice area. - along with their exhibition team of Secil Taskoparan and Ava Wilcox - have premiered PROTOMOMENTS at McGill University.

The exhibition running from January 5-26, represents the recent work of the design studio and features three full-scale constructions. The first, C-LITH, is work from their 2014 Research Through Making project which has received many accolades including a 2014 R+D Awards Honorable Mention. The other two are new projects funded by the University of Michigan’s Office of Research. Boards of other projects and three videos describing the full-scale work will also be on display.

According to the team, the PROTOMOMENTS exhibition is described as follows:

Looking across the field of architecture today, one is witness to a landscape occupied by a whole class of objects that are neither the scaled versions of a known, but future, thing - a model; nor a full-scaled test of known, but untested, arrangement - a mock-up. Though the model and the mockup are instruments that have been utilized for centuries, nowadays we see another category of experimental “intermediate” objects—prototypes—negotiating new and still unstable material, manufacturing, and technological domains. As pragmatic objects, these prototypes are self-referencing, complete, and fully formed explorations all the while remaining open-ended and open to future application. Their innovations feel simultaneously specific and unstable. Looked at epistemologically, these prototypes are also representations (perhaps even three dimensional drawings) that embody disciplinary aspirations for intellectual innovation between craft and (knowledge) making.

Area, based in Ann Arbor, was founded in 1992 with the goal of exploring design issues built around public access and digital fabrication. Therefore, PROTOMOMENTS represents an exploration into current trends in architecture and its production. In addition to the exhibit, Trandafirescu will give a lecture to McGill University on the 26th. Visit the McGill website for more information.