About the Project ...

Typically, comprehensive studio occurs at the end of a student’s education. Each year studios and courses outside of studio slowly incorporate issues relating to building materials, building construction, and systems integration. It is our belief that these critical lessons can and should happen at the beginning of one’s formal architectural education. During the Spring semester of 2010, three faculty, 7 teaching assistants and approximately 100 first year, second semester architecture students attempted to reverse this trend in architectural education.
The project, entitled The Living Wall was an ambitious undertaking that result in the design and fabrication of 14 full-scale structures. Together they formed a 100’ linear community of dwellings that subsequently was opened to the public, only after the students themselves had a chance to spend 24 hours in them. This experience of designing, building and then inhabiting enabled the students to better understand the consequences of their decisions and to explore the successes and shortcomings of their designs firsthand.
To re-examine the architectural education and contemporary professional concerns, we introduced a comprehensive curriculum that provided freshman with a thorough understanding of a vast range of issues including urbanity, micro housing, prefabrication, and efficiency. These issues were organized into three distinct pedagogical categories that we consider to be part of the integrated design process: urban density with a focus on the parti-wall and housing, modularity with a focus on the prefabricated sub-assembly, and efficiency within the material construction process as well as within the transportation of the finished projects.

Urban density and housing 
The finished individual projects were the result of physical transformations of a 6’x 6’x 8’ volume occupied by 6 or 7 students; thus the project calls into question the amount of space needed to live comfortably within the context of a micro-dwelling. The parti-wall was addressed as a design-space where adjacent units shared exterior conditions when the wall between them dissolved. The layering of inhabitable surface area within and between the units promoted the sense of community and allowed the Wall to function as a mediator social activity.

Modularity
Because the site for the Wall was roughly 50 miles from the campus where the units were fabricated, the students were asked to develop structural schemes that stressed modularity and reduced weight. Each unit consisted of several sub-assemblies capable of being carried and lifted into place by a few people. These sub-assemblies were then ratcheted together with hand tools on-site.

Efficiency 
Each of the design schemes followed a rigorous process of redlines and reviews with faculty and structural engineers until a final set of shop drawings and full scale mockups were produced before final construction. The drawing set included all necessary documents for detailed and timely construction as well as specific material lists, quantities, dimensions, weight, and costs per square foot. This process allowed the faculty to order materials in bulk, ensure some level of safety, and review the projects for structural stability.
The Living Wall was a huge educational experiment organized around one firm belief; that most architecture is produced in teams, and effective collaboration between all members is essential. We find that integrating these issues and collaborating with outside professionals is a productive conversation and critical to young architecture students.


The Living Wall of 2010 was installed at the Griffis Sculpture Park (Located in Cattaraugus County between Ashford Hollow and East Otto) and remained open to the public through October 23, 2010.

The Living Wall of 2011 is projected to be installed once again at the Griffis Sculpture Park this upcoming April.  We've begun the process with a few changes in place for this year, and will be documenting the progress here.  Thank you very much for checking out the work!

Update:  The Wall of 2011 has been completed!  We're hoping for a longer lifespan for this year's project and to see it through the winter and another summer season.  Fingers crossed.