Eric J Cesal

All EGTH studio projects begin with diagramming. A student picks an issue they’d like to address, and they’re required to work backwards and understand the root causes, and the root causes of those root causes. In this case, a student is examining a man-made disaster: the mass poisoning of a population as a result of corporate greed, oversight and mismanagement.

Once they fully understand the true origins of the problem, they work to understand how those problems eventually show up in built form. They rapidly move into ideas about how a design might evolve, using the root problems as a parti.

The project begins to take shape around new ideas about what a building should do. In this case, the student is proposing new means of interaction between the corporation and the public, as well as a less hierarchical building structure, and enhanced visibility through, and between offices.

If the concept has merit, the student is encouraged to fully develop their idea into a full studio project, and articulate the design with the appropriate level of detail.

The student is pushed to understand their project as two overlapping arguments. First, that their project is a good piece of ‘architecture.’ And second, that design choices can have a meaningful effect on how the world plays out. Not that buildings can always prevent disaster, but they can stop contributing to the conditions that set the stage for disaster.

In this case, the student’s design involves partitioning and floor level changes that might seem superfluous if motivated solely by traditional design considerations. But when the purpose of architecture changes, its form must adapt as well.

In this case, the student’s design involves partitioning and floor level changes that might seem superfluous if motivated solely by traditional design considerations. But when the purpose of architecture changes, its form must adapt as well.

In this case, the student follows a similar process on a wildly different project. Her subject was Tangiers Island, a small island in the Chesapeake Bay at the forefront of climate change and sea level rise. Experts predict that the island will vanish rapidly and its residents will be among the first climate change refugees in the U.S.

The student’s diagramming process brought her to the conclusion that there was no way to arrest the sea’s advance.  Rather than trying to ‘preserve’ the island, she began to think about how the Island’s struggle could be made meaningful.

Her solution was to develop a program that would evolve over the next 100 years, in three principle phases: Inhabit, Abandon, Submerge.

The phases corresponded to different functions for the Island. In the Inhabit phase, the building is given new life as a resource center for residents who are being asked to move, as well as laboratory space for the study of Chesapeake Bay ecologies. In the Abandon phase, the building switches to a more exclusively research-based program, where scientists can study the advancing sea and its effects on land. Finally, in the Submerge phase, the building takes on the role of memorial, intended to stand forever in the Chesapeake Bay, as a warning to passing ships, and future generations, about the perils of ignoring climate science.

This student wanted to look at the issue of genocide, and understand how the frameworks for genocide were allowed to proliferate, even after so many painful lessons in history.

In her global political research, she found a correlation between the rates of education of young girls, and the prevalence of disaster.  Societies that place a value on the education of young girls earn themselves a slew of benefits which, in turn, stymie the social rot that creates the condition for disaster.

Choosing Rwanda as a location, the student endeavored to design a contemporary girl’s school utilizing traditional masonry techniques.

Her project did not propose that a building could actually prevent genocide. It did argue that Girls’ education could foster a stronger, smarter society where the agents of genocide would find less purchase.

Her project did not propose that a building could actually prevent genocide. It did argue that Girls’ education could foster a stronger, smarter society where the agents of genocide would find less purchase.