Hasta La Ideas

The Architectural League’s Prize for Young Architects yearly round-up of the best emerging practices features several young global practices under the banner It’s Different. The show is on view now at The New School.

This year, the Architectural League asks: What is the role of the designer?

Every generation thinks it is special, new, and different—and ours is no exception…This difference will require architects and the discipline to practice architecture and design without preconceptions and assumptions, rethinking how designers engage constructively with our cities, our environments, and our societies…What is the new role of the designer?

Interestingly, none of the practices positioned their work in direct response to this question about the role of the designer (gone are the days of lengthy wall-length essays inspired by ’80s semiotics or ’90s post-structuralism). Instead, It’s Different conveys a more pragmatic landscape, a candid snapshot of a diasporic collection of activity where architects are exploring the different edges of disciplines, ideas and technologies that they express personal affinities for.

THE PROS:

More room for experimentation=more latitude.

A common thread running through the practices in the exhibition was openness to interdisciplinary collaboration and the question of choosing which technologies to use and how to integrate it into architecture.

One good example of this is experimentation with interactivity and responsive environments from Future Cities Lab, a practice based in San Francisco.

Future Cities Labs constructs complex environmental installations that often harness a dynamic and ongoing environmental interaction, whether it is the heat energy of human bodies near a wall, or the slow process of a piece of glacier melting and being captured by contact mics and amplified to create a sonic environment.

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