Office: i/thee | ArchDaily

The Dining Room Installation / i/thee

Hadir Al Koshta — Thu, 21 Nov 2024 12:00:00 +0000

The Dining Room, the inaugural installation of the ARTocka Trail Loop, is an experimental earthen pavilion that harnesses the forces of nature to create a public dining space and picnic area at Lake Petocka in Bondurant, Iowa. The pavilion features two rammed earth walls intentionally eroded to reveal playful public infrastructures that intersect and protrude from the volumes—giving the impression natural forces have slowly excavated them over centuries. As one of Iowa's first public rammed earth projects, the installation showcases the benefits, versatility, and feasibility of rammed earth construction in a humid continental climate and provides a model for subsequent earthen buildings.

Java and Jam Pavilions / i/thee

Valeria Silva — Sun, 05 Nov 2023 11:00:00 +0000

Java and Jam are experimental pavilions clad in bio-composite material mixtures composed of spent coffee grounds and white grape skins, respectively. The installation was designed/developed as a contemporary take on wattle-and-daub construction—replacing woven wattle walls with a computationally designed plywood lath and mud daub with alternative materials consisting of bio-waste aggregates, sawdust, and cultivated straw, bound with non-toxic glues. In this regard, the project aims to merge computational design and digital fabrication methodologies with time-tested and place-based techniques and, ultimately, to demonstrate a more critical integration of emerging technologies within the construction ecosystem.

Half of A House Pavilion / i/thee + RAWstudio

Paula Pintos — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 12:00:00 +0000

Half of a House utilizes the construction, disassembly, and reuse of parametrically designed rammed earth formwork to complete two contrasting halves of a prototypal dwelling. Split vertically through the central axis, one half of the house consists of unstabilized rammed earth while the other is assembled from the reconstructed formwork used to cast its neighbor. Through the use of non-reinforced organic materials (earth) and the reuse of construction debris that would otherwise be discarded (formwork), the project aims to rethink traditional economies of construction, material, and waste—taking typically linear pipelines and finding inventive ways to create sustainable cycles. Furthermore, by implementing pragmatic parametrization techniques that optimize the formwork design for reuse, the project conceptualizes a more nuanced approach to computational design aesthetics beyond formal intricacy.

Peak-A-Boo Installation / i/thee

Valeria Silva — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 18:00:00 +0000

Peeking out from among the trees on the historic grounds of the 1969 Woodstock Music and Art Fair, Peak-A-Boo takes shape as a continuous series of wood-laminate arches and decks which form a pavilion and flexible performance space.

ReEmber Playland / i/thee

Valeria Silva — Wed, 03 Nov 2021 03:00:00 +0000

The design of this set, built to showcase Teva’s new ReEmber shoe collection, was imagined as a recyclable Playland for adults. The installation consists of three distinct set-pieces, that when combined, form a series of interchangeable scenes instigating whimsical choreographies in users against the harsh backdrop of the Amboy Salt Flats. The first set-piece exists as a collection of interlocking blocks that can be stacked, like a puzzle, into a wall or disassembled and arranged to create various interactive spaces.

Ghost House Installation / i/thee

Paula Pintos — Mon, 14 Jun 2021 14:00:00 +0000

Ghost House was conceived as an experiment in material manipulation, the form of which is directly dependent on the weather, environment, and time itself. The process of construction started with the erection of light wooden frames to create the formal outlines of two houses. Then, custom-cut canvas sheets were soaked in non-toxic adhesive and draped over the frames. Over the course of a few hours, the sheets froze into solid objects while blowing in the strong mountain winds.

Agg Hab Prototypal Eco-Dwelling / i/thee + Roundhouse Platform

Andreas Luco — Wed, 24 Jun 2020 06:00:00 +0000

The Agg Hab, or Aggregate Habitat, is a prototypal eco-dwelling formed by casting papier-mâché strips into sculpted holes in the ground. Measuring over twenty feet long, eight feet wide, and four-and-a-half feet tall, and constructed using nearly 200 liters of glue and 270 pounds of paper, the house stands unofficially as one the world’s largest, self-supporting, papier-mâché structures. The process of construction started with the digging of two mirrored, convexo-concave holes, each four-and-a-half feet deep. These holes were then cast with multiple layers of an organic, papier-mâché mixture consisting of various recycled papers and non-toxic glues.

Ebb (and Flow) Installation / i/thee

Paula Pintos — Fri, 07 Feb 2020 17:00:00 +0000

On the one hand, ebb (and flow) refers to a formal literalism; the structure literally flows around the desert. However, ebb (and flow) also refers to a mindset: the conscious movement and engagement with the world around us. In this sense, the project aims to break down existing barriers between our existing and constructed realities: architecture, nature, and art. Plants are an extension of the ground; architecture is an extension of people; everything is an extension of nature.

Kerplunk House / i/thee

Pilar Caballero — Mon, 09 Jul 2018 16:00:00 +0000

The Kerplunk House aims to bridge the gap between found space and built space; not just an architecture that resembles nature, but an architecture that is nature. Like a forest, or ancient European city, the rule of order is hidden from the user. Though a deep pattern of organization does exist, it is not readily apparent. The house's carefully designed structural precariousness lends itself to an innate primal comfort normally only found in nature.