ax•i•om noun: self-evident or universally recognized truth; a maxim + form•me verb: to compose or to assemble = ax•i•o•me
Axi:Ome, derives from the crossing of two latin words axiom and forme. We engage architecture as research; a mode of representation directly interfaced into social, cultural and economic influences. For us, originality pertains to authenticity where each project is a thesis of situations. We are aware of the representations we employ and how they inform the work. Architects are on the edge of performance and material opportunities with the developing digital operations that allow for increased participation in the building process. We encourage technological conditions that enable freedom within our design choices, and we believe that original work in today’s climate involves a spirit of collaboration where unique opportunities preside over individual authorship.
Axi:Ome have currently received commissions for various scaled projects and are developing research projects incorporating new material and manufacturing processes. As architects and designers, our aspiration is to actively explore the material, formal and technical production of spatial form. Our design work projects a field across aesthetics, utility, technology, theory, culture, economics and environmental concerns. Within these opportunities, architecture depends on optimism and discipline.
Axi:Ome is a design team that brings together diverse programmatic and experiential aspirations to create work at the scale of the environment, the building and the individual. We strive to create beautiful spatial forms that capture the unique circumstances of each place and the potential social event spaces. We are motivated by changes in technology and innovation, yet we strive to strike a balance between a traditional work process and new methods of exploration.
The Axi:Ome team is particularly mindful of the social interactivity of our work and play zones. Our backgrounds in both architecture and interactive public media play heavily in the belief that design of all scales principally derives from people and the social events they create. We aspire to create fluid environments that have the foresight and flexibility to encourage evolving public activity. Communication boundaries are ever expanding our definition of place, allowing connections between people in remote locations. These networks are made possible by advances in technology that are becoming ubiquitous to our everyday lives. We need sensitive design solutions that recognize these potentials in both spatial terms and practical applications. Our design practice is at a critical juncture between speculative and built works. This transition propels our research into the territory of negotiating client and economic feasibility. We develop design process within formal manipulation of materials and space, an unfolding dialogue between two and three dimensional representations, a concern for environmental and experiential enjoyment of place, and an orchestrated balance between new methods of fabrication and industry standards.
In our current atmosphere, architecture depends on a sophisticated set of interconnected spatial relationships between built projects. Returning to the idea of the architect as both designer and coordinator of multi-disciplinary teams, our contemporary environment requires sensitivity to fluctuating local conditions, larger environmental concerns, and a close engagement with fabrication processes.
Axi:Ome was formed in 2001 in Providence Rhode Island, primarily as an architectural research practice evolving from the public media projects of Sung Ho Kim. Heather Woofter joined in St. Louis Missouri in 2003 with eight years in full time architectural practice. Since then, Sung Ho and Heather balance teaching with design practice, working with a variety of partners to help shape innovative design solutions. Sung Ho and Heather are involved in all phases of Axi:Ome's work in a desire for the projects to operate in a continuous dialogue at multiple scales, experimenting with shared ideas and concerns. Our work focuses on the concept that a building's spatial form and innovation are inextricably woven to one another and that architecture's progressive future lies in speculation, imagination, research and resolution of the intellectual development of design process.
