02/21/20 - Weekly Summary Post

Chiara Blissett
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Work-In-Progress 'Why' Statement/Theses (needs editing)

Permanently fixed frameworks and outlined trajectories construct our urban environments; through apparent, unambiguous forms and stationary walls. As physical beings, forced to adapt to the predefined route in which physical confines constitute, our ability to be present and perceive the world through the full scope of our senses is muffled. In cities, multiple selves cooperate in a crowd to travel within predefined trajectories of motion, the vessel, or city, being unresponsive to our existence. This muted self inevitably seeks a sense of presence, entailing amplification, and rejoicing in its uniqueness.

By nature, organic space emanates from the entities inhabiting it, reformed and reconstructed, by mutualistic interactions and constructed around the needs of living organisms in its ecosystem; organic space also embodies subjective decisions as sprinkles, or microcosms, in each natural ecosystem, or macrocosm. In natural environments, the presence of our self is amplified as we leave a unique imprint in each step and mark our paths and trails.

My project (still untitled) is a medium of this reimagination of urbanism, toiling as a canvas for each person to engage with, reshape, and augment or burgeon the capacity of their engaged senses. Actuated by human presence, the installation responds to motion and is activated by physical interaction, unveiling how the body delineates the abstract space, not the other way around. 

Other 'Why' Statements (not expressed above)

  • Educate the public about technology in design
    • Biotechnology
    • 'Communicate' with bacteria
  • CREATE A POSITIVE IMAGE FOR BIOTECHNOLOGY/BACTERIA
    • Bacteria is not a negative thing; it is not disgusting
    • Bacteria can be used in a variety of settings/applications
  • Improve the user's state of mind (colors and psychology)


Design Intention(s)

  • Curate a project that is bio-interactive/break down barriers between conventional objects or installations and biology
  • Create 'the undefined'


Precedents (in order of occurrence)

  • MIT Media Lab - bioLogic
  • Achim Menges - HygroScope
  • CUPRA - Kinetic Wall
  • Daan Roosengaarde - LOTUS 7.0
  • Nassia Inglessis - Urban Imprint
  • Hero Design - Everbright
  • Matsys - Chrysalis (III)
  • Harry Wei - Breathing Architecture
  • Tobias Becker - Breathing Skins Showroom
  • Adaptive Systems Lab - Soft Robotic Building Skin Prototype
  • Yelyzaveta Popova and Frances Kaplan - O.S.C.U.
  • Jessie Wang and Lani Wang - The Post Office Pancake
  • MIT Mediated Matter - Biointeractive