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Aligned with the first week of the fall term, Graduate Thesis at SCI-Arc cultivates an inevitable link between the theses of outgoing graduates and the curiosity of incoming students. The weekend of reviews gives graduate thesis students an invaluable platform to articulate, propose, and defend their work to the SCI-Arc community and beyond. 97 students and 21 faculty advisors will converge with an array of invited guest critics from within and outside the discipline of architecture, to review, debate, and contemplate the provocations of this year's thesis projects.

“This year's graduate thesis projects at SCI-Arc are rooted in a profound understanding of the persistent social, technological, and climatic challenges we face globally,” notes Jackilin Hah Bloom, Graduate Thesis Coordinator. “Students have established new capacities to address these issues, not from a problem-solving approach, but one that focuses more on crafting novel processes and frameworks to enhance our understanding of the built environment. While each project represents a unique and personal exploration, collectively, this year's thesis projects will invigorate discussions around technology, building, and ecology.”

Special thanks to all the constituents at SCI-Arc who help to make all Graduate Thesis events happen.

DIRECTOR/CEO

Hernán Díaz Alonso

VICE DIRECTOR/CHIEF ACADEMIC OFFICER

John Enright

GRADUATE PROGRAMS CHAIR

Elena Manferdini

GRADUATE THESIS COORDINATOR

Jackilin Hah Bloom

ASSISTANT TEACHER

Richard Mapes

TEACHING ASSISTANTS

Kelly Dix Van Benjamin Elmer

HISTORY + THEORY ADVISORS

John Cooper Erik Ghenoiu Marcelyn Gow

DESIGN ADVISORS

Matthew Au Kristy Balliet Jackilin Hah Bloom Ramiro Diaz-Granados David Eskenazi Soomeen Hahm Damjan Jovanović Karel Klein Zeina Koreitem Karen Lohrmann Elena Manferdini Rachael McCall Eric Owen Moss Anna Neimark Casey Rehm David Ruy Marcelo Spina William Virgil
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Meng-Jung Ho

Elena ManferdiniWei-Chieh Wang

Shopping Universe

New Experiences at the Edge of Nature and Urbanity

 

Work-Consumption Interconnection, Shopping Mall, Transparency Lifecycle, Sustainable Consumerism

The close relationship between consumption and workspace is highlighted through the employment of paid workers. While work for one person, the employee, is consumption for another, the employer, it reveals that these two activities are not easily distinguishable. Consumption, often seen as a leisure activity and the opposite of work, is actually intertwined with work. This understanding challenges the casual dualism between public/private, work/buying, and production/consumption.

The architectural space of a shopping mall brings together two essential elements: the labor space and the commercial space. These distinct areas are intricately intertwined, creating a dynamic and symbiotic environment. Exploring the links between work and consumption in the shopping mall reveals the relationships between the shopping mall, the wider economy, and the natural world. It disrupts the conventional notions of work and consumption, presenting them as interconnected rather than separate.

However, shopping malls face significant challenges, as their current model promotes unnecessary consumption and lacks variation, leading to declining visitor numbers. Despite this, shopping malls serve as vital "third places" where people gather, socialize, and unwind in public. They play a crucial role in fostering community, promoting inclusivity, and strengthening civil society. When considering the mall's role in recycling the heaps of waste it generates, it becomes essential to examine the spectacle of consumerism. It now generates use-value as infrastructure, continually evolving and mutating with the city.

A reimagined shopping mall presents an opportunity to transform it into more than just a transactional space. It reframes the way people consume and changes the relationship between production and consumption. By adopting a hybrid approach to space-making, the shopping mall architecture moves away from being solely a commercial space and becomes a factory-commercial hybrid space within a new commons.

This reimagined approach brings transparency to the lifecycle of products, promotes environmentally responsible building practices, and establishes a circular production and re-production chain. Consumers are actively engaged in repurposing specific objects, giving them a second life and redefining the role of "buying" and "discarding" in our society. Architecturally, the reimagined shopping mall embodies a system of spatial and labor-product relationships, extending beyond the physical limits of the building. It conveys the entire reality of production, from material extraction to product assembly and customization, organizing logistics for efficient management of workers and machinery.

These two interconnected spaces, the labor space, and the commercial space, provide visitors with a unique and transformative experience. The labor space offers transparency and authenticity, allowing consumers to witness craftsmanship and repurposing techniques firsthand. This fosters a deeper appreciation for sustainable practices. The commercial space serves as a bridge, connecting repurposed creations with consumers, facilitating economic transactions and providing educational opportunities.

By merging labor and commercial spaces, this architectural design cultivates a symbiotic relationship between production and consumption. It brings transparency to the lifecycle of products, engages consumers in the repurposing process, and creates a visually appealing and environmentally conscious shopping experience. Despite consumption often being seen as separate from work, these two activities are fundamentally intertwined in our lives, as we rely on consumer goods for daily necessities, creating work and driving capitalist forms of production and exchange. Machines would play a significant role in recycling the vast amount of waste generated by discarded products, bridging the gap between the product and its manufacturing processes. This would enable a circular production process and resourceful assemblage to function within the city. Additionally, the mall could engage consumers in the repurposing of consumption, reframing their roles in contemporary social and ecological environments. By associating itself with sustainability and nature, the shopping mall could create a distinctive identity.

 
 

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Alex Aguilera · Ahmed Almohanna · Omar Alrejaib · Lieven Baert · Maddy Berthold · Arjun Bharat · Adelle Bunch · Charite Carballo · Angelina Castagnola · Mackenzie Champlin · Junyi (Joy) Chen · Kai-Yen Chen · Wan-Yu (Wendy) Chen · Wei-Hung Chen · Yilong Chen · Yuyan Chen · James Chidiac · Shuang Chu · Jenny Cook · Kai Daniels · Emily Dinnerman · Solace Enwere  · Zarina Farmer-George ·  Kristoff Fink · Jack Freedman · Miaoyan Ge · Diba Ghazia · Qian Gu · Evelyn Hinojosa · Meng-Jung Ho · Jingbo Huang · TeKuei Huang · Matthew Hunt · Benjamin Jepsky · Suyue Jin · Xiao Jin · Abhishek Kadian · Krishna Kakadia · Yara Kamali · Morgan Knowles Sobotka  · Kaustubh Kulkarni · Aleksandra Lapshina · Daniel Chek Lam Lau · Wonjae Lee · Samson Levi · Sijia Li · Chloe Sijie Lin  · Bingkun Liu · Chunjia (Haruka) Liu  · Lexin Liu · Yanchu Liu · Freeland Livingston · Sizhe Lu · Amin Marandi · Jila Mendoza · Arthur Modine · Zhao Mu · Corey Norman · Lejian Ouyang · Matthew Pak · Jingyi (Casey) Pan  · Piyush Panchal · Hanna Park · Jinyong Park  · Nehal Patel · Felix Reyes · Mohamed Rezk · Jack Sheffield · Jiangyao Shen · Fang Shu · Man Shu · Yangmin Su · Pan Tan · Claire Trout · Marbella Vasquez Farach · Maria (Meli) Vasquez  · Jiehao Wang · Wei-Chieh Wang · Zeyu Wang · Michael Webb · Jixun Wen · Zhifeng Wu · Jinxin Xu · Huaiben Yang · Yuexiao Yang · TIffany Yu · Xinyuan Yue · Rebecca Zamani · Hiwot Zegeye · Jiaxin Zhao · Rui Zhao · Yiyu Zhou · Wei Zhu · Qingyang Zong · Haocun (Joseph) Zou  · Mange Zou · Kyle Zufra · Kyle Zufra ·  Alex Aguilera · Ahmed Almohanna · Omar Alrejaib · Lieven Baert · Maddy Berthold · Arjun Bharat · Adelle Bunch · Charite Carballo · Angelina Castagnola · Mackenzie Champlin · Junyi (Joy) Chen · Kai-Yen Chen · Wan-Yu (Wendy) Chen · Wei-Hung Chen · Yilong Chen · Yuyan Chen · James Chidiac · Shuang Chu · Jenny Cook · Kai Daniels · Emily Dinnerman · Solace Enwere  · Zarina Farmer-George ·  Kristoff Fink · Jack Freedman · Miaoyan Ge · Diba Ghazia · Qian Gu · Evelyn Hinojosa · Meng-Jung Ho · Jingbo Huang · TeKuei Huang · Matthew Hunt · Benjamin Jepsky · Suyue Jin · Xiao Jin · Abhishek Kadian · Krishna Kakadia · Yara Kamali · Morgan Knowles Sobotka  · Kaustubh Kulkarni · Aleksandra Lapshina · Daniel Chek Lam Lau · Wonjae Lee · Samson Levi · Sijia Li · Chloe Sijie Lin  · Bingkun Liu · Chunjia (Haruka) Liu  · Lexin Liu · Yanchu Liu · Freeland Livingston · Sizhe Lu · Amin Marandi · Jila Mendoza · Arthur Modine · Zhao Mu · Corey Norman · Lejian Ouyang · Matthew Pak · Jingyi (Casey) Pan  · Piyush Panchal · Hanna Park · Jinyong Park  · Nehal Patel · Felix Reyes · Mohamed Rezk · Jack Sheffield · Jiangyao Shen · Fang Shu · Man Shu · Yangmin Su · Pan Tan · Claire Trout · Marbella Vasquez Farach · Maria (Meli) Vasquez  · Jiehao Wang · Wei-Chieh Wang · Zeyu Wang · Michael Webb · Jixun Wen · Zhifeng Wu · Jinxin Xu · Huaiben Yang · Yuexiao Yang · TIffany Yu · Xinyuan Yue · Rebecca Zamani · Hiwot Zegeye · Jiaxin Zhao · Rui Zhao · Yiyu Zhou · Wei Zhu · Qingyang Zong · Haocun (Joseph) Zou  · Mange Zou · Kyle Zufra · Kyle Zufra ·