The impact of information technology on architecture is the focus of “Hybrid Environments,” an exhibit featured at the American Institute of Architecture Gallery, located in the UNM School of Architecture and Planning, 2414 Central Ave SE. The exhibit is open Monday - Thursday from noon to 5 p.m. through June 30.
Tim Castillo, assistant professor, School of Architecture and Planning, partnered with Rana Abu-Dayyeh on the exhibit. Based locally, Hybrid Environments is an experimental and multi-disciplinary design practice that currently involves speculative research and commissioned projects.
“We research what architecture will become because of information technology – cell phones, the Internet and PDAs. We are particularly interested in an emerging new hybrid typology generated by interactions formulated by digital information, infrastructure and the landscape,” he said.
Currently their work investigates a variety of scales ranging from architecture, urban design, multi-media environments and product design.
Among the projects exhibited is “Low Rider Museum.” “We look at the automobile, the low rider, culturally. There is distinctive object fascination and urban experience with the low rider. It represents hybrid because it is neither Mexican nor American, but Chicano. It is an example of counterculture because it goes against the sense of speed and velocity represented by the automobile,” Castillo said.
Castillo notes how the low rider redefines the town of Española. “Low riders cruise the town from one Sonic drive-in to the other at the opposite end of town,” he said.
Other exhibit experiences include technological conceptualizing of a drive through strip mall. “We have reconceived shopping online,” Castillo said. Another exhibit is for a car wash in London built with computer fabrication technology that allows architects to create buildings using tools such as laser cutters. “We control building materials by computer,” he said.
Castillo and Abu-Dayyeh have been published and exhibited nationally and internationally including the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Lausanne, Switzerland); Pavillon de l’Arsenal in Paris, France; Bienal of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil; University of Waterloo-Canada, University of Colorado, Texas Tech University, University of Utah, University of Colorado and the University of Texas-Arlington.
Contact: Car9olyn Gonzales, (505) 277-5920
Posted by scarr at May 18, 2005 05:12 PM