Astrophysics, Genetic Engineering, and ASMR: Architecture Like You’ve Never Heard It Before
Recorded and produced at SCI-Arc in Los Angeles, The Arc is led by SCI-Arc faculty and History + Theory Coordinator Marrikka Trotter. Each episode juxtaposes a contemporary architectural idea or concern with related concepts from other disciplines, ranging from science to sports, in casual, unscripted, and intimate conversations. The idea is to create fresh approaches to the canon of architectural thought through lively, engaged dialogue with experts in other fields.
“The Arc presents an incredibly dynamic platform which prompts architects to engage and communicate with the world at large,” says SCI-Arc Director Hernán Díaz Alonso. “It is yet another way of expanding upon our mission of promoting architectural thinking and redefining the edges of architecture, so that when put in conversation with other fields, it is illuminated and shifted in a way that produces new global perspectives and novel windows into humanity.”
Listeners can expect to hear a diversity of thoughts and voices ranging from SCI-Arc Undergraduate Program Chair Tom Wiscombe, to neuroscientist Dr. Yewande Pearse, to Nightmare Before Christmas production designer Bill Boes, to dominatrix Mistress Lucy Kahn. Episodes will be released monthly, beginning with Episode 1: Scale, available November 20.
“Architecture is culturally curious,” says Trotter. “We actively seek analogues and connections to other fields of knowledge and other kinds of practice—and of course cultivating this kind of open engagement with the world around us is critical for creative education. For me each conversation is like a portal into another world. I’m learning so much from the people I get the opportunity to engage with, both about their field and, in a kind of disciplinary ricochet, about my own. There’s a mutual contamination—a transfer of excitement that moves in both directions.”