SS-EM is a site dedicated to the thesis work of Shawn Sims and Erik Martinez at the Pratt Institute.
Crisis Fronts is the Degree Project studio and seminar run by Michael Chen and Jason Lee, with Gil Akos and Ronnie Parsons at Pratt Institute’s School of Architecture. Crisis Fronts is an ongoing inquiry into contemporary global crises that suggest new demands and agendas for architecture, and the potential afforded by parametric and generative digital design tools to engage them.
Networks, Cartels, and Cabals | Logistics and Protocols for the Informal City
“At stake here is not just how new forms of infrastructure emerge and what their form may be, but how architecture and urbanism might be catalyzed and transformed both through the implementation of new logics and protocols and the emergence of new social practices and behaviors. In many ways, infrastructure is unique in its capacity to inaugurate and influence new modes of spatial practice as in the case of high-speed networks for transportation. But these are stratified and finite systems, operating predominately at a single scale, and are neither flexible nor responsive to changing contexts and feedback. Insofar as conditions such as climate change, urban growth, and globalization constitute a dynamic crisis front of complexity and volatility, these conditions call for a more lightly described, adaptable infrastructure capable of negotiating complex conditions of constant flux with a range of scales of deployment, scope of influence, and volume of user feedback.”
Shawn Sims: bkboundg@gmail.com
Erik Martinez: martinez.erik.e@gmail.com