After taking a hiatus while the new FRAC Centre was being built, ArchiLab has returned for its ninth edition. The lab started as an opportunity to question the practice of the architect, the diversification of the field, and the new urban challenges of our changing, globalized world. Founded by Marie-Ange Brayer (Director of the FRAC) & Frédéric Migayrou (Deputy Director of the MNAM-Centre Pompidou), it has shaped the architectural debate and served as a launch platform for many architects.
Under the subject of "Naturalizing Architecture," this edition of ArchiLab focuses on the discussion of how architecture now "[...] overlaps with the sources of molecular biology, even in processes of replication, transcription and translation of genetic material. In this way, architects can introduce complex models based on processes involving the self-generation of matter and incorporating programmatic, social, material and environmental variables. Control of these processes turns hybridization into a new architectural order."
We interviewed some of the practices showcased at ArchiLab to understand how they see architecture today, and how their projects are related to the subject of the exhibit.
Interviewed practices: [Ay]A Studio (Jorge Ayala), B+U (Herwig Baumgartner & Scott Uriu), Biothing (Alisa Andrasek), Bloom Games (Alisa Andrasek & Jose Sanchez), EZCT (Philippe Morel), Faulders Studio (Thom Faulders), Kokkugia (Roland Snooks & Robert Stuart-Smith), Matsys (Andrew Kudless), Prof. Achim Menges / ICD Universität Stuttgart (Oliver David Krieg), Minimaforms (Stephen Spyropoulos & Theodore Spyropoulos), Jenny Sabin, soma (Kristina Schinneger), and Xuberance (Steven Ma).
ArchiLab will be open to the public until March 30th, 2014 at the FRAC Centre in Orléans, France.
