Breaking the mold: a journey of the brick

Around the world practitioners and researchers are working on new material systems and technologies that center new ways to build. In this age of information, there are countless design frameworks, tools, machines available to us. We are a part of the fundamental shift in architecture that involves new modes of production and new material systems that redefine our role as architects. We have a role in addressing the context of each project, using architectural elements as tools for negotiation and consensus to build stronger communities. How can architecture contribute to improving global labor conditions, instilling dignity in manual labor, dismantling economic systems that mandate problematic class distinctions, and promoting social and environmental justice? The project titled breaking the mold: a journey of the brick investigates the nature of global practices in architecture and construction. It examines the ethics of production and consumption of materials, foregrounding the inequities that exist within our daily practices. I wanted to understand through this project the relationship of labor to specific means of production and to embody the engagement of people with the material. This project critically examines architectural drawings as a form of representation capable of fostering revelatory dialogues between analog and digital content. It draws from historic examples of drawings by the likes of Piranesi, Choisy, and Boullèe to create a form of digital representation that communicates architectural intent. The drawings in the project choreograph a critical dialogue between the digital pixel and the analog brick: both are basic elements operating within the larger economies of digital images and architectural construction; both are capable of world-building through known logics of aggregation; and both contribute, through recombination, to elaborate and sometimes ornamental patterns