Between Mountains and Seas: Detailing Architecture and Folklore

This design research seminar explores vernacular and folklore as a point of departure to frame the theoretical position of the architect as an integration of socio-ecological systems. While the conventional "detail" in architecture and urban design normalizes professional values, we look to myths, the mundane, to nurture a critical appreciation of material culture, landscapes, stories and people. We dwell into theories of informality and in turn produce a series of experimentations through fabrication, aesthetics and precarities to challenge conventional architectural order in favor of storytelling, ethnographies and ecologies.

There are three phases to this course: (1) developing questions, (2) appraising theoretical frameworks, and (3) drawing and prototyping architectural details. Researchers in this course will gain skills in craft, design through storytelling, fabrication, detailing and vernacular design research. We will learn the following tools: ethno-ecological drawings, operational fabrications, toys, puppetry and filming prototypes. Our journey "Between Mountains and Seas" will curate a volume of sketchbooks, mock-ups and artifacts that will be showcased at the end of the semester through an exhibition.