Brief

This design research seminar blends historical and theoretical exercises with digital and analog fabrication to explore the deep past, complex present, and possible futures of assemblages of the Americas. The course will focus on the flows of ideas, materials, humans, and non-humans between South, Central, and North America from pre-history to present. For the purposes of this course, “assemblage” is defined as material systems, architectures, and cities that come together through dynamic social and environmental forces.

The research problem of the course is rooted in a recognition that the cultural relationships between the South and the North, defined geographically by the border between the United and Mexico, are growing increasingly antagonistic in the contemporary moment. As polarizing media discourse aim to divide the Americas through narratives stoking fear of the Other, the Alien, the Illegal, and the Immigrant, the research question driving this course is: how can design research investigating the past, present, and future intercultural dynamics that connect North, Central, and South America build bridges of mutual understanding across boundaries of difference? Instead of capitulating to the fear of the Other, how can the study of material systems, architectures, and cities that celebrate south-north diversity bring individuals and communities together to form international networks of shared values? Instead of participating in crusades of discrimination that drive people apart, how can historical and theoretical learning - alongside digital and analog fabrication experimentation - bring various peoples and ideas of the Americas together?

The seminar will feature online remote discussions with faculty and students from Universidad Privada Del Norte (Lima, Peru), Universidad de Concepcion (Concepcion, Chile), Universidad Torcuato Di Tella (Buenos Aires, Argentina), University of New Mexico (Albuquerque New Mexico), and others. Continuing off the positive relationship building efforts achieved through Professor Zuroweste’s Fall 2024 Lio Lab design-build studio (Lima / Iowa Operation), which saw the successful completion of a 1,500sf Bamboo Community Pavilion for an under-served K-12 school in the Chorrillos neighborhood of Lima (Peru), the course will aim to give students opportunities for cross-cultural connection. Alongside online remote discussions, the course will read and reflect on texts from various authors across the Americas and work with our hands, eyes, brains, and bodies to fabricate art, architecture, and design objects, artifacts, and systems. With an emphasis on material cultures that span the Americas, such gold, silver, cacao, cotton, rubber, coffee, fruit, hides, wool, petroleum, iron, nickel, manganese, copper, aluminum ore, nitrates, tin, and most recently lithium, students will fabricate material expressions and construct narratives towards a group publication and corresponding exhibition at the end of the semester.

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Parallel Courses

Alongside this seminar, Prof. Zuroweste will be offering an Arch 4030 studio “Sanctuaries of the Rio Grande: South-North Assemblages of Refuge.” The 3 cr seminar outlines on this poster is designed in tandem with the 6 cr Arch 4030 studio to offer an immersive capstone 9 cr hour learning experience. Students that enroll in the studio are strongly encouraged, but not required, to enroll in the seminar. The two courses will unfold in feedback loop of thinking and making. The knowledge and skills acquired in the seminar will be deployed in the studio as an intensive laboratory emphasizing rigorous creative experimentation. Students that are not enrolled in the Arch 4030 studio are also welcome to join the seminar.

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Field Trip

The Arch 4030 studio will fly to Sante Fe, New Mexico and explore sanctuaries of the Rio Grande from Sante Fe to El Paso. Pending administrative approval, students in the seminar are welcome to join in this exploration of the Rio Grande, a river which plays an exceptional role in the past, present, and future of the Americas. We will travel along a 330-mile stretch of river that offers a rich array of travel experiences, including but not limited to: Taos Pueblo UNESCO World Heritage Site, Taos ski valley, the town of Taos, the city of Sante Fe, the city of Albuquerque, the City of El Paso, Valles Caldera National Preserve, Georgia O’Keeffe’s Ghost Ranch, Bandalier National Monument, Petroglyph National Monument, Pecos National Historical Park, El Malpais National Monument, El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail, Gila Cliff Dwellings, White Sands National Park, Chamizal National Memorial, Carlsbad Caverns, and more.

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Methods and Format

The seminar will meet Wednesdays from 09:20a – 11:50a in Room 130. Each session will consist to two halves, approximately 75 mins each. The first half will be dedicated to reading discussions and the second to research project development (i.e. the Atlas). For the reading discussion component, students are expected to arrive prepared with selected quotes and corresponding notes with which they can contribute to the collective discourse. For the research development component, students are expected to bring their laptops for both research production and presentation.

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Assemblages of the Americas: An Incomplete Atlas

The primary deliverable for the seminar will be a collectively produced publication and exhibition: Assemblages of the Americas: An Incomplete Atlas.

The Atlas will be developed in two parts: Latin American chapters produced during the first half of the semester and North American chapters produced during the second half of the semester. Students will work in pairs and together produce two chapters: one south chapter (three precedents, one assemblage) + one north chapter (three precedents, one assemblage). Therefore each pair will contribute two chapters consisting of six precedents and two assemblages over the course of the semester. It is encouraged that students build two assemblages that are related inter hemispherically.

Each chapter will consist of three precedent analyses. The precedents should be described through:

1) text: who / what / when / where / why / how

2) images: at least 6 high resolution images (min. 1,000 pixels x 1,000 pixels or equivalent... 4K preferred)

3) citations: Chicago style, with at least one souce (scanned image) from a print publication checked out from an ISU library

3) From these three precedents students should choose one and develop an assemblage: a drawing, a model, a collage, a bricolage, a mock-up, a material experiment, a combination of these, and/or more. The constraints: the assemblage must touch 4 sides of a virtual 2’ x 2’ x 2’ cube; it must incorporate materials, tools, crafts, and/or techniques available to the people that built the precedent; it must strive to be a work of art that reflects the joy of its making; it must reflect the dynamic positive feedback loop relationship of the hand, the material(s), the eye, the brain, the body, the hand.

4) Each assemblage must be documented through high-quality studio photography using the SICTR Digital Media Workshop: https://sictr.iastate.edu/makerspaces/digital-media-studio/

5) Editors: cohesive development of the Atlas will require two editors that will volunteer to work closely with the instructor to develop content, format, and workflow protocols. These volunteers will be excused from fabricating an assemblage. Instead their assemblage will be the Atlas itself. All students must be willing to proactively collaborate with the editorial team (the instructor and the two student editors) in order to successfully complete the Atlas collectively.

6) With 20 students enrolled, we’ll have approximately 10 pairs. Each pair should choose three Latin American precedents

7) Students are encouraged to select precedents that from Latin America and North American that relate research and/or relate

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