Arctic Ecologies: An Atmospheric Assemblage
(June 2020 - OPEN Exhibition)

With recent events such as June 2020’s record-breaking temperature spike (38°C) within the Arctic Circle, these alarming and unprecedented environmental scenarios require urgent exploration. What is the potential role of architecture in these collapsing climates? To offer resistance, adaptation, measurement or control?

To enable narratives of these critical territories and communicate the entangled stakeholders of the region, a vertical sculpture was curated by DS18 students, from the subterranean to stratospheric layers of the Earth. As part of the Virtual Open 2020 exhibition, each strata of this atmospheric ‘totem’ represents a students project, and the data or simulation outputs used to inform it. It is an assemblage of project themes, relationships, scales, actors and material explored this year as part of the students output.

The model is rendered through temperature extremes, with tones of blue and red corresponding to low and high temperature anomalies. These tones change through time and perspective with each orbit rendered, eluding to the complex dynamics of atmospheric temperature change, and the uneven stresses it exerts on these delicately balanced systems.

See Studio 2019-20 for student project

Air, Architecture + Other Climates
57.0°to 71.0° N : Norway