Lecture: Alexandra Neyman (B.S. '99, M.Arch. '05), "Epigenesis: Plastic Assemblages"

Lecture: Alexandra Neyman (Agg Lab), “Epigenesis: Plastic Assemblages” 

Identity—human, animal and architectural—can no longer be defined by a singular character. It is a complex behavioral hybrid, in the process of responsive and adaptive change, a state of Deleuzian “becoming”, expressing plastic identity through the territorializing of behavioral traits. This differentiated identity becomes an instrument for spatializing innovative lineages, as it reconstitutes ideas of space and time and reshapes the cultural landscape through morphogenetic means.

The work scrutinizes the notion of the generic through the process of recombining physical members, growing new appendages and intensifying the human perception of normality. Regenerative bodies develop through differentiation from singular cells. These differentiated assemblages with multi coded surfaces act as malleable bilateral collectives with a varied capacity for new growth possibilities.

Bodies are cultivated through systemic logics that exhibit emergent behavior, and are examined based on the production of evolutionary traits. Design techniques are set up through the concept of growing self-similar assemblages, with varied degrees of differentiated characteristics – where surface, structure and volume are integrated. In its commitment to metamorphosis, rather than metaphor, bodies are pushed to the extreme to investigate their full growth capabilities toward a maximum of difference and a hybridization of behavioral conditions.

The work investigates the development of plastic ecologies that are bred from the evolution of variegated assemblies. Assemblages operate at multiple scales – from the scale of the body, to skin and surface, to integrated structural wall systems, to landscapes to ornament. Bodies fluctuate between growth and regeneration through digital and analogue algorithmic techniques of design and fabrication. Emphasis is placed on multiple acts of translation, which tend towards contamination. Evolution is sponsored by interferences, corruptive infiltrations, and intricate articulation of surface.

About Alexandra Neyman
Alex holds both a Master of Architecture and a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning.  She also attended University of Michigan School of Art and Design.

Alex has a bit over 10 years of professional experience in the field of architecture: ranging from housing projects to libraries and schools to small scale residential remodeling and renovation.  She has worked in multiple architectural offices and has taught architecture at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.  Alex is currently teaching architecture at the Academy of Art University.  She also is a founding partner at agglab.

Alex’s experimental research is invested in the development and production of an array of affective architectural environments through generative architectural tectonic language, both formal and methodological, that is fluctuating between growth and regeneration through digital and analogue algorithmic techniques of design and fabrication.  The processes developed diverge from specific typological classification established in singular design fields, yet are always endowed with material architectural tendencies.  Logics are cultivated through systematic processes, and examined based on the production of evolutionary traits. Formal invention is evaluated through the assembly of design outcomes.

About Agg Lab
Agg lab is a San Francisco based interdisciplinary research practice led by Monica Tiulescu and Alexandra Neyman (Taubman alumna).

Agg lab is pursuing generative tectonic languages which diverge from specific typological classification established in singular design fields.  Design is approached through experimental methodologies that are initially influenced by concepts derived  from systems thinking and specific observations extracted from basic biological behaviors such as genetic variation.

Agg Lab is interested in the production of non-traditional architectural language, both formal and methodological, that is always in a fluctuating state of constant growth and regeneration. The work produces methods for design that in result operate more like species then objects and produce alternative tectonic languages of representation. Tectonics are cultivated through systematic logics, and examined based on the production of evolutionary traits. Formal invention is evaluated through the assembly of design outcomes.

Design techniques are set up through the concept of growing self-similar assemblages with varied degrees of differentiated characteristics. These are imbued with logics extracted from organic systems.  Explicit Behaviors are displayed in highly articulated and distinctive formal conditions at the local and global level. The logic for establishing formal and continuous seeming relationships, is contingent upon generating autonomous procedures.

Exhibition opening to follow at the Liberty Annex (305 W. Liberty)