Lukas Feireiss
Lukas Feireiss presented a number of architectural projects that crossed disciplinary boundaries and spoke to the issue of mobile architecture or aspects of architecture that are impermanent or ephemeral. His talk was peppered with references to popular cartoons, music, film and literature — indicating his perspective as a writer and curator, not rather than that of an architect. The architectural projects he discussed were rooted in the notion of space craft, a phrase that indicates both a building grounded in solid craftsmanship as well as a more utopian vision of space as all that is new and unknown (the “final frontier”) — a place where gravity may be conquered.

Looking at the architects influenced by this period of excitement and possibility of space travel, Feireiss examines the inflatable spaces of the Archigram Group (also known for Plug-In City and Walking City). During the 60’s, many architects were liberated from the history and ideology of architectural tradition, exploring unconventional materials and creating projects that acted within the realm of conceptual art as opposed to architectural proposal. Archigram’s inflatable space was an impractical structure that played off of the “perennial deam of architecture: to float away on a cloud, to lose gravity.” An inflatable space itself was an impractical, terrible idea — but as Feireiss argues: so what — at times a bad idea is better than a good idea. This is a dramatic statement that hits at the heart of criticisms of utopian projects. The architect should be free to play — to intelligently play — and imagine spaces that resonate with our unspoken needs. Sometimes it is not about finding solutions, but identifying problems and paradoxes within the current conventions of thinking (in this case, architecture).

Abdoumaliq Simone
Abdoumaliq Simone framed his talk around a “particular kind of ghost story” focused on the infrastructure and doubleness of black residency throughout the world: a group that is massively displaced and highly mobile in one sense, but ultimately is never able to go anywhere. Abdoumaliq Simone describes three African cities in which people act as the infrastructure, articulating and directing each other towards different locations, resources, and people that are vital for daily survival. While Lukas Feireiss focused on [playful] physical structures that organize a space, Adoumaliq Simone examines the navigational systems within the urban city. The structure of these communities is one in which an individual is completely implicated in the lives of people they may or may not know — where the personal connections and stories are essential in creating the circuitries and connections necessary to sustain a group of people.