What constitutes an architecture that meaningfully engages with the human and its processes? Does Homo sapiens have specific habitat requirements or preferences? Is architecture powerful enough to guide the course of evolution? What counts as technology and how does it shape the species?
In the last decade, innovations in cognitive imaging, computer interfaces, communication technologies, surrogate natures, sensory mediators and global tracking have reshaped our understanding of the self. Can this shift inform new approaches in occupant-based design or are we still pushing towards an enlightenment-based, rationalist perspective of the human as a neurobiological mechanism? Do the technologies of our time continue to force us into a deterministic and mechanistic view of both occupants and design or have we formed new gateways of artistic and architectural possibility?
Thresholds Issue 42 engages authors to define ‘human’ and consider the species with regards to its physical, virtual and psychological habitat. They seek what it means to be ‘human’ and investigate what happens when the environment acts as mediator for biological processes.
Edited by Tyler Stevermer.
Contributors:
Mark Jarzombek, Timothy Cooke, Andrew Ferentinos, Ginger Nolan, Stefan Helmreich, Mariel Villeré, Simone Ferracina, Harry Francis Mallgrave, Krister Holmes, Caroline A. Jones, Michael Hagner, Sofia Lemos, Nick Axel, Matt Johnson, Ryan R. Ludwig, Jillian Crandall, Elliott Sturtevant, Jenny Hall and Alissa van Asseldonk.
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