This call is for team leads (Fellows) for the summer 2018 session of Critical Practice Studio. Team leads, a blend between teaching mentors and visionary professionals, are awarded a CRITPraX Fellowship. Critical Practice Studio is a summer entry experience for graduate students at Lawrence Tech in the Architecture, Interior Design, Urban Design and MFA Social Practice degrees. It is a team-based, competitive charrette/workshop style studio that meets in four multi-day sessions over the summer. The studio is focused around the work and vision of an acknowledged and accomplished designer or practice involved in a critical practice; a masterclass. This year the master practitioner is Austin+Mergold (http://www.austin-mergold.com/). The master practitioner frames the overall studio and sets the focus and the topics for the team projects. Each student team is organized around the Fellow, a second experienced practitioner who leads the studio group.

This summer's experimental projects will be based around the methodologies and philosophies formulated by Austin+Mergold, a practice that blends landscape architecture, architecture and urban design. The experience this summer is American Spolia, a process of slow architecture engaging vernacular landscapes. Projects run fast with team direction provided by the Fellow in response to the

For example of past work, visit the CRITPraX website (http://criticalpractice.ltu.edu/)

Team leads spend 10 weeks developing a series of short projects guiding a group of eight to twelve students. Personal agendas playing out within the overall studio topic are expected and required. These positions should be inherent and visible in the application, building off the central philosophies and methods of the lead practitioner.

Application

The Fellowship is a 10-week position that requires on-ground presence at four weekend workshops. Formal studio meetings are at the Southfield, Detroit campus on the following schedule:

May 18-20, 2018 (course kickoff/introduction – Charrette One);

June 1-3, 2018 (Charrette Two);

June 22-24, 2018 (Charrette Three);

July 13-15, 2018 (gallery review – Post-Production).

Studio experience starts at 9:00 am on Friday morning and concludes at 2:00 pm on Sunday during each session. Fellows will also meet with their teams on a flexible schedule between workshop sessions in order to guide and develop the project outcomes (10 hours min. direct contact). These interactions might be virtual using digital modalities rather than physical meetings.

Fellows will be awarded a stipend for summer efforts equivalent to an adjunct teaching salary.

Application requirement: short statement of position that considers acts of speculation, narrative, prototyping and relational pursuits. In addition, provide a portfolio focused on recent writing, projects and products (8 items max) and supporting documentation (photograph/illustration). All sub-disciplines of applied design are eligible for the Fellowship (architectural design, urban design, interior design, industrial design, interaction design, graphic design, etc).

Applications should be emailed to Philip Plowright at pplowright@ltu.edu by April 10, 2018. The jury will notify selected Fellows by Friday, April 20, 2018. Email subject line should be “CRITPraX18 Fellowship”.

The 2018 Master Practitioner for the summer Critical Practice experience is Austin+Mergold.

www.austin-mergold.com

Having practiced for over a decade in the United States, Austin+Mergold have realized that all their work refers back to the relentless desires to make sense and use of the various debris of the [recent] past. Having reflected on this further, Austin+Mergold decided to consider their work as the pursuit of American Spolia.

American spolia is a search for a possibility of creating new cultural meaning out of existing context that is decidedly “not ancient”. The medieval builders may have opted to reuse Roman columns primarily because they were too laborious (or, given the state of craft in the early middle ages, simply impossible) to re-fabricate. They then discovered serendipitously that those old artefacts had also augmented the meaning of the new context, thus stimulating a distinctive cultural practice. In our contemporary situation, what would encourage reuse of building parts that are so inexpensive, so readily available off-the-shelf in great quantities and often so laborious to remove from their original contexts, to jumpstart a cultural practice of reimagining our legacy infrastructure, built environment, landscapes, objects and ideas from the last two centuries? An abstract desire to keep durable materials out of landfill is a good start, but perhaps this do-good attitude alone is not enough to carry a contemporary phenomenon of spolia.

In search of these additional stimuli, Austin+Mergold consider art historians’ explanations for the existence of spolia applied to contemporary context. For example, as related to vinyl siding – can there be convenience and availability, profanation or exorcism, damnatio memorea, political legitimization, aesthetic wonderment or admiration. And in addition to these considerations, there exists a dire need to stop tapping into virgin materials and to learn to defamiliarize and decontextualize artifacts of the recent past instead, to find useful applications for the mountains of things (materials, products, objects, even ideas) that we already have.

The aim of this meta-project is to chart the ancient practice of spolia in the context of contemporary [American] architectural practice from the standpoint of designers, builders, and educators on the platform of practice of Austin+Mergold.

Austin+Mergold has just won the 2018 City of Dreams Pavilion Competition

https://archpaper.com/2018/02/winner-2018-city-dreams-pavilion-competition-announced/

CRITPraX runs as four intensive workshop charrettes over the summer semester.

Sessions start at 10:00 am on Friday morning and run through to working presentations on Sunday, ending at 2:00 pm. The weeks between sessions are for design teams to refine, develop and produce outcomes based on the proposal by the critical master practitioner.

The dates for Summer 2018 CRITPraX workshops are:

May 18-20, 2018 (course kickoff/introduction – Charrette One);

June 1-3, 2018 (Charrette Two);

June 22-24, 2018 (Charrette Three); and

July 13-15, 2018 (gallery review – Post-Production).

CRITPraX is proud to offer Fellowships to the following exceptional practitioners for the Summer 2017 program:

Victoria Mcreynolds, Texas Tech, Texas

Could be Architecture (Joseph Altshuler + Zack Morrison), Chicago

Elise Dechard, Detroit

Team B (David Corns + Quinn Kummer), Cincinnati

SubStudio (Hannah Dewhirst + Ingrid Schmidt), Detroit/Cincinnati

This summer's experimental projects will be based around the methodologies and philosophies formulated by Angie Co. The experience this summer is titled FIGURING WORLDS: CHARACTERS, MODELS, PROTOTYPES, balancing between the crafts of fabrication and narrative. The studio will focus on speculation as a design strategy combined with relational modeling (as opposed to representational modeling) following through to prototyping. Projects run fast with team direction provided by the Fellow in response to the critical positioning of the invited studio lead.

The Fellowship is a 10-week position that requires on-ground presence at four weekend workshops. Formal studio meetings are at the Southfield, Detroit campus on the following schedule:

May 19-21, 2017 (course kickoff/introduction – Charrette One);

June 2-4, 2017 (Charrette Two);

June 23-25, 2017 (Charrette Three);

July 14-16, 2017 (gallery review – Post-Production).

Studio experience starts at 9:00 am on Friday morning and concludes at 2:00 pm on Sunday during each session. Fellows will also meet with their teams on a flexible schedule between workshop sessions in order to guide and develop the project outcomes (10 hours min. direct contact). These interactions might be virtual using digital modalities rather than physical meetings.

Fellows will be awarded a stipend for summer efforts equivalent to an adjunct teaching salary.

Application requirement: short statement of position that considers acts of speculation, narrative, prototyping and relational pursuits. In addition, provide a portfolio focused on recent writing, projects and products (8 items max) and supporting documentation (photograph/illustration). All sub-disciplines of applied design are eligible for the Fellowship (architectural design, urban design, interior design, industrial design, interaction design, graphic design, etc).

Applications should be emailed to Philip Plowright at pplowright@ltu.edu by March 5, 2017. The jury will notify selected Fellows by Friday, March 17, 2016. Email subject line should be “CRITPraX16 Fellowship”.

Full Call is here.

CRITPraX runs as four intensive workshop charrettes over the summer semester.

Sessions start at 10:00 am on Friday morning and run through to working presentations on Sunday, ending at 2:00 pm. The weeks between sessions are for design teams to refine, develop and produce outcomes based on the proposal by the critical master practitioner.

The dates for Summer 2017 CRITPraX workshops are:

May 19-21, 2017 (course kickoff/introduction – Charrette One);

June 2-4, 2017 (Charrette Two);

June 23-25, 2017 (Charrette Three); and

July 14-16, 2017 (gallery review – Post-Production).

CRITPraX and the College of Architecture and Design at Lawrence Tech are proud to announce the 2017 Master Practitioner for the summer program is Angie Co of Studio Co Architecture and Syracuse University.

Angela Co is an architect, designer, and teacher committed to the belief that architecture has the capacity to shape both individual experience and collective understanding. She is the founder of Studio Co Architecture, a design practice concerned with transforming everyday life at a range of scales, including furniture, buildings, and urban design. Her research into engaging, ambiguous architectural artifacts and their effects on space, bodies, and perception has been supported by the Arnold W. Brunner Rome Prize in Architecture, the MacDowell Colony, the Institute for Public Architecture, and the Eyebeam Institute of Art + Technology.

CRITPraX, Lawrence Tech College of Architecture and Design and The Bittertang Farm present:

OffGassing

Pop-up gallery opening on Saturday, July 16th, 2016 from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm.

An exploration of large scale sensual atmospheres and environments where bodies, spaces,

furniture and plants all contribute to new primal worlds. The work explores the body as it relates to its environment as one of the most ostracized interactions within contemporary architectural work when directly addressing human pleasure. The explorations capitalize on the various ways in which the body engages with its surroundings and pushes to the extreme of how it fits into the world, forcing the bodily and the constructed world to interact in much more dirty, messy and sensual ways. The projects work through inflatables and engages with oversized turgid and bodily forms. Eight teams have been asked to be simultaneously technical and sensual to create engineering marvels and fantasy experiences.

Projects lead by:

Aaron Blendowski

Benje Feehan

Carrie Smith

David Corns

Hannah Dewhirst & Ingrid Schmidt

Joel Gerber

Mark Dineen & Michael Neville

Neda Mostafavi

Guided tours, invited critics and designer talks during the day.

Parking available off Oakland Street between E. Grand Blvd and Milwaukee Ave. Entrance to the gallery is on the north alley wall of the DOGE PRODUCTION BUILDING (FIRST FLOOR NORTH), 6545 ST. ANTOINE, DETROIT, MI 48202.

This summer we have the good fortune of being able to invite 10 young, critical practitioners to join the CPx experience as Fellows, responsible for leading each of their teams in an alternative approach to the challenges presented by Bittertang.

The 2016 Fellows are:

Hannah Dewhirst & Ingrid Schmidt (SUBSTUDIO) - New York/Detroit

Carrie Smith - New York

David Corns (Team B) - Cincinnati

Benje Feehan - Texas

Aaron Blendowski (OKDesign) - Detroit

Mark Dineen & Michael Neville (Zero Craft Corp.) - Detroit

Neda Mostafavi - New York

Joel Gerber - Toronto

This call is for team leads for the summer 2016 session of Critical Practice Studio. Team leads, a blend between teaching mentors and visionary professionals, are awarded a CRITPraX Fellowship. It is a team-based, competitive charrette/workshop style studio that meets in four multi-day sessions over the summer. The studio is focused around a single architectural designer or practice involved in a critical practice; a masterclass. This year the master practitioner is Bittertang. The master practitioner frames the overall studio and sets the focus and the topics for the team projects. Each student team is organized around the Fellow, a second experienced practitioner who leads the studio group.

Application requirement: short statement of position that aligns with Bittertang's priorities (300 word max), abbreviated C.V. focused on recent writing, projects and products (8 items max) and supporting documentation (photograph/illustration). All sub-disciplines of applied design are eligible for the Fellowship (architectural design, urban design, interior design, industrial design).

Applications should be emailed to Philip Plowright at pplowright -at- ltu dot edu by March 4, 2016. The jury will notify selected Fellows by March 18, 2016. Email subject line should be “CRITPraX16 Fellowship”.

Full Call is located here.

CRITPraX runs as four intensive workshop charrettes over the summer semester.

Sessions start at 10:00 am on Friday morning and run through to working presentations on Sunday, ending at 2:00 pm. The weeks between sessions are for design teams to refine, develop and produce outcomes based on the proposal by the critical master practitioner.

The dates for Summer 2016 CRITPraX workshops are:

May 20 - 22

June 3 - 5

June 24 - 26

July 15-17

CRITPrax is proud to announce that the 2016 summer charrette/workshop program will be lead by Bittertang, represented by Antonio Torres and Michael Loverich.

Bittertang are best understood in their own words: "Bittertang is a small design farm run by Antonio Torres and Michael Loverich who strive to bring happiness and pleasure into the built world by referencing that pleasurable world which surrounds us. Our work explores multiple themes including pleasure, frothiness, biological matter, animal posturing, babies, sculpture and coloration all unified through bel composto. Our explorations are based in digital and visceral matter with output transitioning between scales and localities leaving our traces of frothy matter in various disciplines. Although trained as architects our prolific interests and methodology associates us closely to the organization of a farm. Bittertang material is breed, coaxed and grown to yield tasty morsels, beautiful new exotic beasts and fertilizer for future growth. Digging deep into the fertile detritus left by thousands of years of human history and artifacts our goal is to add thick rich fodder to contemporary material culture." http://bittertang.com/

On Architizer

TED

Architecture Record

2010 Arch. League Prize

.

CRITPrax is proud to present "Ecotarium: Unlimited Lifecycle Design" guided by Terreform ONE and edited by Melanie Fessel and Philip Plowright (CRITPraX Series, Volume 2).

Purchase and download options:

B&W Paperback (Amazon) ($24.95):

eBook ($14.95)

Digital View or Download (free):

ISSUU version

or direct download (40 megs)

The work from CRITPraX Summer 2014 was included in an exhibition in Berlin, Germany this past March.

The exhibition was DEVOUR PART II at the ZKU (Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanismus, Berlin) with talks & screenings on 25th March 6.30pm and a mini exhibition on view 26th and 27th March. Artists included Jordi Colomer, Architects duo Muresanu, Matias Machado, Vladimir US, Andrej Mircev, Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss with Philip Plowright, Failed Architecture, Patrick Jambon. Curators: Andrej Mircev and Marta Jecu.

The projects selected by the curators were:

PURE MICHIGAN SANATORIUM: A LAKE-SIDE RETREAT FOR THE TERMINALLY ILL / Anirban Adhya & Alina Chelaidite [leads], Steven Mcmahon, Eleana Glava, Adam Wakulchik, Jeremy Adams, Gregory Wood, Jinhan Liu, Christopher Siminski, Jonathan Tull, Tra Page

THE RISE AND FALL OF TYPOLOGY: RETREATING THE MIDDEST / Irsida Bejo [lead], Stephen Bohlen, Ryan Kronbetter, Amin Toghiani, Alexis Blackwell-Brown, Breck Crandell, Shuang Wu, Christina Jackson, Nicole Gerou, Christopher Bartholomew

COMPLEXITY AND CONTRADICTION OF A POLITICAL ZOO / Charlie O’Geen [lead], Irina Dwyer, Paul Eland, Randi Marsh, Scott Newsted, Devika Sangurdekar, Laura Schneider, Christopher Theisen, Ashley Brenner, Kanqi Zhu

A PATTERN LANGUAGE: MASS-PRODUCTION, MONUMENTS, MOATS / Charlie O’Geen [lead], Irina Dwyer, Paul Eland, Randi Marsh, Scott Newsted, Devika Sangurdekar, Laura Schneider, Christopher Theisen, Ashley Brenner, Kanqi Zhu

RETURN OF THE WEVI / Maria Simon [lead], Joseph Vani, Terri Douglas, Geoff Lasoski, Ben Luther, Drew Pelkey Randy Sova Ii, Luting Xu, Jamie Tischler

FOLLY IS MONUMENT / Amy Swift [lead], Nick Cressman, Kirk Stefko, Christopher Stefani, Jonathan Selleck, Guanyi Wang, Sarah Saleh, Jerry Carter, Jon Krdu, Abhimanyu Lakhey

This call is for team leads for the summer 2015 session of Critical Practice Studio. Team leads, a blend between teaching mentors and visionary professionals, are awarded a CRITPraX Fellowship. It is a team-based, competitive charrette style studio that meets in four multi-day sessions over the summer. The studio is focused around a single architectural designer or practice involved in a critical practice; a masterclass. This year the master practitioner is Terreform ONE under the guidance of Mitchell Joachim, Melanie Fessel and Nurhan Gokturk. The master practitioner frames the overall studio and sets the focus and the topics for the team projects. Each student team is organized around the Fellow, a second experienced practitioner who leads the studio group.

Application requirement: short statement of position that aligns with Terreform ONE priorities (300 word max), abbreviated C.V. focused on recent writing, projects and products (8 items max) and supporting documentation (photograph/illustration). All sub-disciplines of applied design are eligible for the Fellowship (architectural design, urban design, interior design, industrial design).

Applications should be emailed to Philip Plowright at pplowright -at- ltu dot edu by March 30, 2015. The jury will notify selected Fellows by April 13, 2015. Email subject line should be “CRITPraX15 Fellowship”.

Full Call is located here.

Congratulations to Brean Bush, Charles Harris, Jonathan Reynolds, Aaron Jones and Wes Taylor for their successful submission of "A Little Fawn" into the Storefront of Art and Architecture's 2015 Storefront TV Season 2. "A Little Fawn" was part of the 2015 Critical Practice Studio lead by Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss.

You can find the trailers for Storefront's season here.

The original project is found as part of the CRITPraX publication, Inhabiting Everyday Monuments. A full version of this publication can be found here.

CRITPrax is proud to announce that the 2015 summer charrette program will be lead by Terreform ONE, represented by Mitchell Joachim, Melanie Fessel and Nurhan Gokturk.

Terreform ONE is an innovative and critical practice based in New York City but with international reach and concerns. It operates as a non-profit design group merging diverse, but related, disciplines of architecture, urban design, biology, chemistry, and engineering. As an activist entity, Terreform ONE is a highly significant organization mapping changing capacities of the design profession in the face of ethical responsibilities. Terreform ONE operates as a design practice, research organization, educational entity, competition organizer, dissemination outlet and community outreach center.

Terreform ONE has won many awards including being an official selection of the Venice Biennale, the Architizer A+ Award, AIA awards (Urban Merit Award), the Victor J. Papanek Social Design Award, Zumtobel Group Award for Sustainability and Humanity, and the Infiniti Design Excellence Award.

CRITPraX runs as four intensive workshop charrettes over the summer semester.

Sessions start at 10:00 am on Friday morning and run through to working presentations on Sunday, ending at 2:00 pm. The three weeks between sessions are for teams to refine, develop and produce outcomes based on the proposal by the critical practitioner lead.

The dates for Summer 2015 CRITPraX sessions are:

May 15-17

June 5-7

June 26-28

July 17-19

CRITPraX is proud to present "Inhabiting Everyday Monuments: A Critical Practice Masterclass with Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss / NAO" (CRITPraX 14). This 439 page book contains twenty four graphic novels created by eight architecture design teams gathered at Lawrence Technological University in the summer of 2014. They carry analysis and propositions for inhabitation of extraordinary post-industrial landscape between Detroit and Flint, Michigan. This masterclass re-interpretated unrealized visions of radical Western architecture from 1960’ and 1970’ amalgamated with archeology of socialist monuments from Eastern Europe built about the same time These projects are seeking contemporary aspects of inhabiting futures from the past. They are charged with ideologies that inspired them as symbols of the future and their ever dislocation of the everyday into forthcoming times. The projects drew future into the present and explored new typologies of inhabitation and their emerging monumentality.

Purchase options:

Full colour ($94.99):

B&W ($18.18)

Digital View or Download (free):

ISSUU version (free)

or direct download (80 megs)

CRITPraX runs as four intensive workshop charrettes over the summer semester.

Sessions start at 10:00 am on Friday morning and run through to working presentations on Sunday, ending at 2:00 pm. The three weeks between sessions are for teams to refine, develop and produce outcomes based on the proposal by the critical practitioner lead.

The dates for Summer 2014 CRITPraX sessions are:

May 16-18

June 6-8

June 27-29

July 18-20

The 2014 Fellows have been awarded. Eleven young, intelligent and accomplished individuals have been granted a Fellowship to lead eight teams this summer under Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss of NAO.

The Fellows are:

Aaron Jones + Wes Talyor (Talking Dolls Studio)

Irsida Bejo (D/AGSTUD\O)

Maria Simon (UHawai'i)

Anirban Adhya + Alina Chelaidite

Amy Swift (Building Hugger)

Stewart Hicks + Allison Newmeyer (Design With Company)

Christopher Holzwart

Charlie O'Geen

Critical Practice Studio is a summer entry experience for students at Lawrence Tech moving to the upper levels of the M.Arch degree. It is a team-based, competitive charrette style studio that meets in four multi-day sessions over the summer. The studio is focused around a single architectural designer who is involved in a critical project. This year the master practitioner is Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss of NAO. This summer's experimental projects will be based around the methodologies formulated by the School of Missing Studies. The interest will be centered on the vanishing of ideology through examining of the "knowledge of the empty" and a "twist to wild life". Using architectural typological methods combined with art practices and strategies, the teams under Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss will explore making the future from the past.