Neoplasmatic Architecture by marcos cruz

Neoarch – Neoplasmatic Architecture covers the experimental work of Marcos Cruz, his distinct teaching activity and the work of marcosandmarjan.

It investigates the impact of innovative technology on current design practices, in particular what concerns the advent of synthetic life in architecture. It looks at advances in new digital media and biotechnology within a design context that is increasingly more interdisciplinary, while simultaneously focusing on a new spatial, programmatic and linguistic dimension of architecture and the city.

Ultimately, Neoarch aims to discuss a future vision of the body in architecture by exploring ‘Flesh’ as a new concept that allows rethinking our common and more traditional understanding of architecture. Central is the investigation about our Human Flesh (the Body) and a new emerging Architectural Flesh; a broader discussion about Aesthetics of Flesh; along with a vision of a new Urban, Digital and Neo-Biological Flesh

The research of Marcos Cruz is structured into three different, yet complementary parts: personal theoretical and design investigations, the practice of marcosandmarjan, and the teaching activity mainly centered on the activity as a tutor of Diploma Unit 20 (since 1999) and DS10 at the University of Westminster (2006-2010).

The Body in architecture

This research is dedicated to a future vision of the body in architecture. It questions our ‘human flesh’ and its altered relationship with a new contemporary ‘architectural flesh’. Different body conceptions are analyzed in historic and aesthetic terms, helping to recognize the emergence of a present condition known as Cyborgian Body – a widely accepted new existential condition that still needs to be redefined. The underlying argument of this investigation is that today’s architecture has failed the body with its long heritage of physical detachment, purity of form, and aesthetics of cleanliness. But a resurgence of interest in flesh, especially in art, has led to politics of abjection, changing completely traditional aesthetics, and is now giving light to an alternative discussion about the body in architecture. Through the comparative analysis of a variety of 20th century and also contemporary projects, along with the design of new building typologies, ‘flesh’ is proposed as a concept that extends the meaning of skin, one of architecture’s most fundamental metaphors. Hence, in a time when a pervasive discourse about the impact of digital technologies risks turning the architectural skin ever more disembodied, the aim is to put forward a ‘thick embodied flesh’ by creating architectural interfaces that are truly inhabitable.

An important part of this investigation (done within the premise of Diploma Unit 20) focuses on spaces with an intrinsic spiritual dimension, in which the impact of new digital languages and techniques, notions of embodiment and bodily engagement, and broader cultural and religious motivations can be developed. Apart from numerous projects, there is a major exhibition at Christ Church Spitalfields in London and a publication of marcosandmarjan in progress (due in 2010).

Neoplasmatic Design

Through a variety of projects, Marcos Cruz investigates different concepts of flesh, not just concerning the human, aesthetic and architectural, but also biological aspects of flesh. More than derived from scaled-up analogies between biological systems and larger scale architectural constructs, the focus is lying on the emergence of a Neo-Biological Flesh that entails new semi-living conditions. Such phenomena are part of what Cruz defines in broad terms as Neoplasmatic Architecture. It analyses the impact of emerging progressive biological advances upon architectural and design practice. It investigates the current groundswell of experiments and creations that utilize digital design as a method to explore and manipulate actual biological material. The rapid development of innovative design approaches in the realms of environmental engineering, bio-technology and even medicine are becoming of increasing significance to architectural practice due to their inevitable cultural, aesthetic and technical implications. A notion of design is emerging in which interdisciplinary work methodologies, traded between artists, designers, engineers, biologists and physicians is already happening, giving rise to hybrid technologies, new materiality and hitherto unimaginable potentially living forms. The results of this research have been published in the edition AD – Neoplasmatic Design, guest-edited by Marcos Cruz and Steve Pike (John Wiley & Sons) in November 2008.

A crucial part of this interdisciplinary research looks at how new semi-living conditions and digital technologies can have a real impact on our future living. This research is driven by innovative products, material and bio-technological investigations, and is directed at speculative dwelling typologies. A series of 1:1 prototypes for objects and future domestic spaces, involving new fabrication techniques and digital and responsive technologies is currently being planned (2010-2012).

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