NYSE Extension

Dec 2021

We wish to create a “creature” that holds a self-oriented complexity situating well NFT mining and exhibiting functions. We start with a non-planar strategy of form finding and space giving. With functions following forms, we come up with a composition of interlocking arches, stairs, and halls.

Several atriums of ventilation, daylighting, traffic, and connection functions become the spines of the concrete mega-structure. Beneath and above, they are the feet and oculus of the creature. Our approach to NFT and blockchain is that their complexity is not machinery piling and stacking up. Blockchain is a perpetual iterating thread where servers are just boxes accommodating the process.

We see the complexity of mingling primitive patterns, of input and output, of 0s and 1s, of keys and values. We find those prototypes as arches, stairs, and halls in the development of our architecture. We learn from Piranesi to coin this ecstatic self-oriented complexity.

ARCH 703 Advanced Architectural Design Studio / University of Pennsylvannia

Co-produced with Yaxin Sun / Instructed by Hyojin Kwon