Winka’s research, promoting innovation and multidisciplinary practices

By Editorial Staff - 14 September 2021

Archi-Tectonics is a research-based firm in New York City founded by Winka Dubbeldam in 1994 with offices in the United States, Netherlands and China. Their work embraces how technology and the resultant design process have impacted contemporary design. Exploring how an architectural object evolves and is produced is of particular interest to how the firm researches and constructs its signature designs. The idea of a “strange object” reflects the non-standard way the firm’s projects are born. They consider each project’s formal and performative features, and then establish principal architectural investigation and narratives. Archi-Tectonics’ approach promotes innovative and multidisciplinary work.

Process, experimentation + production

There is potential for a “strange object” to generate new forms and meanings. Reconceiving the process of how the architectural object is produced through iteration and experimentation and then experience changes the very concept of objectivity not to mention the definition of architecture. While modernity considered the building form primarily as a compilation of planar and linear geometries, digital design tools have allowed for the idea of architecture as an object to re-emerge.

Increasing is the interpretation of building components as collective objects of a digital compilation. The resultant architecture isn’t cogent and hollow, but is dense and solid. This new architectural object is different from planar surfaces and is created as a 3D object wrapped with skin. Additionally, there is reasoning or knowledge which proceeds from theoretical deduction rather than from observation or a meaning assigned to it. This solid object welcomes new interpretations of itself.

The book

The aforementioned themes are the object of the most recent book by Professor Winka Dubbeldam/Archi-Tectonics entitled, Strange Objects, New Solids and Massive Things. The book, which contains more than 600 images and graphics, traces the past 15 years of innovative multidisciplinary work produced by Archi-Tectonics through 10 case studies that explore process, experimentation, and production. Strange Objects includes essays by Winka Dubbeldam, Manuel Delanda and Jonathan Jackson, along with a lengthy interview between Dubbeldam and Zack Saunders.