Unbuilding Gender

2018-10-05T18:16:00-04:00

Gordon Matta-Clark’s inventive site-specific cuts into abandoned buildings demonstrated approaches to the concept of home and to the market system of real estate that were anarchistic, creatively destructive, and full of queer promise.

In "Unbuilding Gender," Jack Halberstam extends the ideas of unbuilding and creative destruction that characterize Gordon Matta-Clark's work to develop a queer concept of anarchitecture focused on the trans* body.

Halberstam is the 2018 recipient of the Arcus/Places Prize for innovative public scholarship on the relationship between gender, sexuality, and the built environment. The biennial prize is a unique collaboration between the Diversity Platforms Committee of the College of Environmental Design at University of California, Berkeley, and Places, supported by the college’s Arcus Endowment.

(Un)natural Architectures: Scorpion Design Temperature-Controlled Burrows

2014-07-03T19:28:00-04:00

Scientists have discovered that scorpions design their burrows to include both hot and cold spots. A long platform provides a sunny place to warm up before they hunt, whilst a humid chamber acts as a cool refuge during the heat of the day.

This recent discovery of scorpion architecture adds to a sizeable list of impressive non-human architecture.

Anthills consist of a complex network of paths. Comparative to the size of an individual ant, these structures are mega-skyscrapers.

Likewise, termites build huge structures that have been dubbed "cathedrals." Reaching up to 6m high or more, termite cathedrals are clustered in large arrays that cover whole landscapes.

This complex web of branches was built by the vogelkop gardener bowerbird. In direct refutation of the "less is more" aesthetic exemplified by both ants and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, these birds embellish their structures with any bright things they can find.

Primates, including humans, are probably the most avid builders. For example, from an early age, orangutans learn to design and construct elaborately woven nests high in trees.

Far from trivial – and humor aside –, studying animal architectures helps destabilize the normative understanding of architecture as a...

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Unbuilding Gender

(Un)natural Architectures: Scorpion Design Temperature-Controlled Burrows