5TH YEAR studio II

The Story Of An Unusual Apocalypse

What would it mean to live in a worl where reality is no longer a given?

The challenge behind this project was to re-imagine the role of a dwelling under unforeseeable apocalyptic events, telling the story of this new world through the eyes of the character who must inhabit this newly found architecture.

As a caveat, the apocalyptic scenario of our choice was encouraged to be an unconventional environmental catastrophe, marked by a set of factors that would entirely change the way humans interact with their surroundings. In this way, this new dwelling typology would be defined by an entirely new set of design guidelines, pushing the architectural discourse into unexplored territories.  

 

My apocalyptic event was defined by the total contamination of the air by hallucinogenic spores caused by an uncontrollable rise in the farming and transgenic experimentations of psychedelic mushrooms in the year 2063.  

What would it mean to live in a world where reality is no longer a given? What does one need? What does one do? What is the transcendental state of this architecture?

Part of the studio involved the development of a character for which the architecture would be designed. My character is the last known survivor in this world. After being diagnosed with terminal cancer and loosing all of his family, he was living in seclusion waiting for his death when the great apocalypse took place. After being exposed to the spores, he has the epiphany of building a place for himself, where he’d learn to exist in solitude and embrace his upcoming death.

SAMUEL RASKOLNIKOV

  • 55 years old
  • PhD in Aerospace engineering worked under Space-X to develop farming shuttles for the I.S.S.
  • Botany Enthusiast

This project was all about telling the Story of Raskolnikov, and how the architecture he created played a role in rekindling his will to live amidst the most adverse of situations.

This short video depicts his last moments before saying goodbye to his last remaining friend… His home

Watch the video on YouTube!

Let’s get started

project information

Project Name: Representation of the Spatiotemporal: A Domicile for the Climate Apocalypse

Project Location: The Colorado mountains (nondescript site)

Professor: Joshua Smith 

Project Type: Academic/Individual