Archinect - Features

'The Notion of AI as a Form of Augmentation or Enhancement Is Fascinating to Me'; A Conversation with Behnaz Farahi

2023-06-05T07:31:00-04:00

Behnaz Farahi stands at an eclectic intersection between culture and technology. Trained as an architect, with specializations in computational design, interactive technologies, additive manufacturing, and digital fabrication, Farahi asks how emerging technologies can allow us to creatively explore the most pressing social and cultural issues of our time, from hierarchies and biases to objectification and bodily perception.

Among these many explorations, Farahi has won particular acclaim for her use of fashion to interrogate and subvert the subject of the male gaze on female bodies. In addition to honors and awards from the Cooper Hewitt, Fast Company, and beyond, Farahi's work has been the subject of several exhibitions, including Returning the Gaze at Milan Fashion Week (2022), Caress of the Gaze at the A+D Museum (2016), and most recently, in the immersive experiences Oneness and Blindness at the CSULB Innovation Space on June 10th, 2023.

In May 2023, Archinect's Niall Patrick W...

Assessing Surveillance: Infrastructures of Security in the Tohono O‘odham Nation

2018-02-13T09:00:00-05:00

In March of 2014, United States Customs and Border Protection awarded Elbit Systems of America a contract to design, construct, and deploy Integrated Fixed Towers (IFT) at an unspecified number of sites in unspecified locations along the southwestern border of the United States. Elbit’s responsibilities extended beyond mere construction and monitoring to in situ testing, ensuring customer satisfaction with their product’s ability “to detect, track, identify, and classify movement on the border” [1].

The Whistleblower Architects: surveillance, infrastructure, and freedom of information according to Cryptome (part 2)

2016-07-07T12:15:00-04:00

This is the second half of a two-part interview with Cryptome, an online repository of leaked government secrets and other documents relevant to contemporary surveillance and its infrastructure. Cryptome is run by the architects Deborah Natsios and John Young, who live and work in New York City (any use of the first person is from Natsios' perspective). Part one, which you can read here, delves into their backgrounds and motivations. Part two deals more with their views on the contemporary city and the politics of information access.

The Whistleblower Architects: surveillance, infrastructure, and freedom of information according to Cryptome (part 1)

2016-07-05T08:36:00-04:00

Architects are no strangers to controversy, but few have had their work called a “tip off [to] terrorists,” as The New York Times once described Deborah Natsios and John Young’s twenty year old project, Cryptome. Then again, few architects devote their time to disclosing government secrets, from the internal emails of Wikileaks to lists of alleged former members of the Stasi.

If houses had airplane modes: an interview with Joseph Grima of Space Caviar

2016-06-07T08:27:00-04:00

“Should our homes have an airplane mode?” asks the Italian architecture studio Space Caviar, in the descriptive text for their RAM House, a fully-equipped smart home that alternatively doubles as a refuge from the ubiquitous technology of today.