Jonathan Medina

Thesis Studio led by Professor Brad Horn

Hibernacula: The Architecture of Cataformalism

Nothing unsettles anthropocentrism like a catastrophe. The sudden onset of devastating force flattens political, social, and biological hierarchies. In a rapid reordering of material relationships, human boundaries and coordinates are upended – altering the scale and inhabitability of the built environment. While acknowledging the tragic loss of life in these events, this project draws inspiration from the physical reality of collapse – which, by fundamentally excluding the human, generates moments of expansion and opportunity for non-human life-forms. The cata·formal approach explores the way in which material failure generates its own morphology and programming by re-scaling structural and spatial relationships. What does an architecture look like that doesn’t acknowledge interior/exterior, “natural”/constructed, and human/non-human categories?

To view the final thesis submission, visit here.