Archinect - Features

Parsons M.Arch Graduate Tommy Yang Converts New York City's Train Stations into "Nuanced-Topias"

2020-08-28T13:51:00-04:00

With New York City's train stations as the backdrop of his thesis, Parsons School of Design M.Arch graduate Tommy Yang explores architectural narratives embedded in built environment to develop The Nuanced-Topia: Insurgent Frameworks for Storytelling. According to Yang, "My thesis manifests as an assembly that hinges on spaces of opportunities engulfing the existing train structure, creating spaces for the day-to-day actors. It is a fable between existing sites and their artifacts of process, deriving from the clash of the urban grids and intersection of transportation arteries."

Archinect connected with Yang to learn about his thesis, how he transitioned during a time of remote learning, and what it means to be an M.Arch graduate during a pandemic. Yang's thesis project is the recipient of the Alpha Ro Chi Medal 2020 for Design Excellence and NYCxDESIGN Architecture Graduates Showcase.

Archinect's Spotlight on 2020 Thesis Projects: 2020 has been an extraordinarily challenging year ...

SOFTLab's Michael Szivos Discusses the Power of Material Experimentation and What It Means to Blend the Boundaries of Architecture With Other Disciplines

2019-03-04T12:27:00-05:00

Executing projects through experimentation and technical refinery, Michael Szivos of SOFTlab focuses his energy on creating new ways for the boundaries of architecture to overlap with other materials, digital techniques, and disciplines. Starting your practice is not an easy task. After receiving his graduate degree in architecture from Columbia GSAPP, Szivos sought to work on projects that pushed his creative process while challenging the scale and feasibility of his work. Established as a studio whose expertise ranges from digital fabrication to immersive and interactive installations, SOFTlab has made their mark in the fields of architecture, art, and technology.

For this week's Studio Snapshot, Szivos shares his humble beginnings as an emerging designer. We discuss the struggles of design feasibility in addition to how he manages the business and creative side of the practice. From discussions about interactive multimedia to the origins of the studio's name, Szivos shares with ...

The Reluctant Architect: 15 Minutes with Liz Diller

2016-04-20T08:49:00-04:00

Elizabeth Diller, co-founding partner of Diller, Scofidio and Renfro, almost didn’t become an architect. In her student years at Cooper Union, Diller expressed a greater interest in pursuing film than in taking up traditional architectural practice, partly because the profession seemed like too much of a commercial pursuit. Some thirty-six years later, from the Broad Museum to Lincoln Center to The High Line, DS+R’s built work consistently pushes the visitor to experience space in an unanticipated way without providing a ready-made interpretation.

Transparent Motives: the ins and outs of sex-specific architecture

2016-04-15T08:20:00-04:00

If sex is the ultimate form of openness, then the architecture designed specifically to facilitate it could, up until recently anyway, be described as opaque. Even those more flagrant hot spots, like Emperor Nero’s Domus Aurea or Japan’s ubiquitous love hotels, tended to be built to obscure their purpose, at least from the outside. Indeed, it is only within the last few decades that the notion of sex as an activity that could be displayed, or at least not obscured, has come into a more public architectural vogue. Transparency, in its boundary blurring form, is a defining characteristic of architecture for sex.