Archinect - Features

Storytelling, Bias, and Exploitation in Digital Realms; A Conversation with Miriam Hillawi Abraham

2023-10-24T12:01:00-04:00

For Miriam Hillawi Abraham, the digital realm is one fraught with both opportunities and dangers. The Ethiopian designer and researcher sees digital media as an impactful, playful, and unrestrained way of shaping immersive stories that challenge Western narratives and power dynamics imposed on the African continent, its histories, its built environment, and its people.

Meanwhile, Abraham sounds a timely note of caution on the potential for digital technologies and artificial intelligence to generate a single, incomplete visual language for the future, further propagating a Western-centric monoculture under a false guise of democratization, opportunity, and accessibility.

In July 2023, Archinect’s Niall Patrick Walsh spoke with Abraham about her life, work, and reflections on the relationship between architecture, storytelling, digital realms, and power relations. The discussion, edited slightly for clarity, is published below.

This article is part of the Archinect In-Depth: Artifici...

AI Bias and Digital Colonialism; A Conversation with Morehshin Allahyari

2023-10-16T08:16:00-04:00

Whether through her art, writings, or lectures, Morehshin Allahyari's work evokes a range of emotions among its audience. There is wonder and intrigue at her reinterpretation of centuries-old Middle Eastern stories, images, and artifacts. There is introspection on our preconceived views on concepts from open-source data to digital archiving. Finally, there is a blend of frustration and motivation to act as Allahyari takes us on a journey through the exploitative history of colonial power relations between the West and the Middle East.

Using 3D simulation, video, sculpture, and digital fabrication, Allahyari warns us of a modern landscape in which power dynamics straddle both digital and physical worlds, articulating her theory of Digital Colonialism as a "framework for critically examining the tendency for information technologies to be deployed in ways that reproduce colonial power relations." In an age of artificial intelligence, the messages and critiques found within Allahyari's...

SCI-Arc B.Arch Graduates Hongjian Qin & Chi Fong Wong Explore Post-Human Infrastructural Architecture in Las Vegas

2020-08-21T12:38:00-04:00

Using Las Vegas as the backdrop of their thesis exploration, SCI-Arc B.Arch graduates Hongjian Qin & Chi Fong Wong design a data center whose structure can adapt to its surrounding desert environment. By creating a "sustainable breathing facade" the structure, in addition to its surrounding energy facilities, helps establish "a new, horizontal corridor that is perpendicular to the Las Vegas Strip." Their design exploration unpacks the purpose of architecture during a post-human time.

Archinect connected with the duo to learn about their project's progress and how they transitioned the entire project to a digital format. The team also shares their thoughts on how the pandemic has affected the industry and architecture's resiliency as it responds to the turbulent events of 2020.

Archinect's Spotlight on 2020 Thesis Projects: 2020 has been an extraordinarily challenging year for architecture graduates. Students were displaced as schools shut down, academic communities had to adapt to a...

University of Toronto Graduate Student Rachel Chan Visualizes The Everyday Futures of Big Data

2020-07-08T12:04:00-04:00

Data has become a commodity that influences the world of design. This week Archinect, connects with M.Arch graduate Rachel Chan who studied at the University of Toronto John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. Chan's exploration of a data-driven world is given a comic-like visual narrative to question information's impact on culture and the physical world. Chan explains, "technology is coming to us much faster than our culture and ideologies are forming. How can we be better prepared to design for this future? [...] as the Internet’s presence becomes overwhelmingly significant and will require more mega structures to keep it online."

Archinect's Spotlight on 2020 Thesis Projects: 2020 has been an extraordinarily challenging year for architecture graduates. Students were displaced as schools shut down, academic communities had to adapt to a new virtual format, end-of-year celebrations were canceled or changed dramatically, and now these students are graduating ...

Design as quantification: what if buildings could talk?

2016-08-11T09:47:00-04:00

The AEC industry can be understood by the information flows and communication facilities that exist within it. Just as the acronym groups three seemingly separate entities under the banner of a single industry, as designers, we must communicate and interpret information across disciplinary boundaries—to engineers, contractors, partners, clients, press, so on.

The Trouble with a Bird’s Eye View: LA Forum's exhibition looks at Los Angeles from afar

2014-06-27T19:10:00-04:00

No single image can contain a city, particularly one as large as Los Angeles. But through the accumulation of many, it may be possible that the irreducible complexity of a city can become slightly more legible. Pairing aerial photographs by Los Angeles-based Lane Barden with a geo-mapping project by the German-American duo Benedikt Groß and Joseph K. Lee, the summer exhibition of the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Design presents two distinct perspectives with which to view the city.