‘Towards a New [Hypo]Thesis’ at The Cooper Union

Architecture, Astor Place, The Cooper Union

 

 

TOWARDS A NEW [HYPO]THESIS ~ OilScapes: Re-Mapping the Power Politics. Image courtesy of The Cooper Union
The Master of Architecture II Graduate exhibition, Towards a New [Hypo]Thesis, 2017-18 Thesis Exhibition will open at The Cooper Union on September 11.

TOWARDS A NEW [HYPO]THESIS ~ The Architecture of [Objects] of Architecture: Material Indexes, Cultural Icons and the Mechanisms of Signification. Image courtesy of The Cooper Union

The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture Advanced Design Studio of The Cooper Union will open its doors to innovative and seminal works from the Master of Architecture II 2017-18 Thesis Exhibition, entitled Towards a New [Hypo]Thesis ~ testing new architectural paradigms to invent novel visual arguments.

Best described by The Cooper Union, “Graduate thesis provides a unique opportunity to test new architectural paradigms unique to an individual’s own interests in architecture, as rooted within a larger question in architecture today. Within the formulation of a key argument, each student was asked to invent verbal and visual evidence in the form of an investigative ‘hypothesis.’ The unique culmination of this year’s projects aims to test the conceptual underpinnings of key subject areas through a sequence of deeply varied themes that challenge the future of architectural discourse in the form of a critical question. The process of discovery and translation from research to the visualization of a proposed argument [and back and forth] became an essential conceptual framework. All projects were activated by an ‘animate’ method of thinking to capture time and discover the essence of each thesis argument as an iterative trajectory. This animate reveal inspired novel methods of representation, tying together variant conceptual, structural, material, and aesthetic goals of each hypothesis.”

TOWARDS A NEW [HYPO]THESIS ~ Hybrid Systems: Technology, Rituals and Domestic Objects. Image courtesy of The Cooper Union
Sample projects include Joseph Raffin’s The Architecture of [Objects] of Architecture: Material Indexes, Cultural Icons and the Mechanisms of Signification, which uses the animate method to challenge vertical icononography of New York in search of a new cultural index, and Marcela Osmos Pérez’s Hybrid Systems: Technology, Rituals and Domesticity which uses the animate method to discover new ways of domestic living in an urban framework inspired by novel advents in technology from wireless electricity to new transient materiality.

This exhibition presents the work of The Cooper Union’s 2017-2018 Master of Architecture II Graduate Design Studio, focusing on thesis projects, but presenting a selection of work from the entire academic year of the graduate program.

Mersiha Veledar, assistant professor at The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecure, served as thesis coordinator. Studio critics included Dean of Architecture Nader Tehrani, along with professors Anna Bokov, Lauren Kogod, James Lowder, and Michael Young.

Towards a New [Hypo]Thesis, the Master of Architecture II Graduate exhibition, a 2017-18 thesis exhibition will take place from September 11-28, 2018 with Opening Reception on Tuesday, September 11 from 6:30-8:30pm at The Cooper Union, Arthur A. Houghton Jr. Gallery, 7 East 7th Street, Second Floor (at Astor Place).

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