SPECULATIVE ARCHITECTURE

How did you begin to collaborate with this section of SoDAA’s Master of Architecture studio?

AF: A little over ten years ago I was supervising a grad student at the gallery, and she told me about her thesis studio taught by Dr. Wischer. I was invited to participate in a critique of the student’s artefects and was impressed by the complexity of their research—revealed through the creation of objects, often sculptural and poetic. I told Dr. Wischer that I would love to share this sort of research in the Gallery and so we set a date for an exhibition.

What are artefacts and how do they stimulate the creation of architecture?

SW: In the context of the studio, artefacts are not models of buildings, nor are they illustrations of preconceived ideas. They are material constructs—objects, assemblies, or fragments—that embody a set of questions, tensions, or narratives.

The key is that artefacts resist immediate explanation. They are intentionally incomplete or ambiguous, which requires students to engage them interpretively. Through this process, architecture does not begin with a fixed concept or form, which moves toward representation; instead, it emerges through a dialogue with the artefact.

This is where the work becomes generative. The artefact begins to suggest spatial conditions, material logics, and even forms of occupation or ritual. It establishes constraints and possibilities at the same time. In this sense, the artefact is not a preliminary step—it is the ground from which architecture is discovered.

Considering the emphasis we tend to place on pictures, artefacts become valuable because they bring about stories by beginning in depth with all the senses. What better place to start a discussion about architecture—in space, rather than looking at a representation of space and form.

How do you curate an exhibition featuring so many different materials, ideas and themes?

AF: Viewing the development of each student’s research over the semester, I have an idea about the conceptual direction of their artefacts. The grad students experiment and make alterations after the initial charette—where they interact with a diverse group of critics. I make an initial layout, but that can change during installation. Presenting artefacts in a public-facing space is different than creating in a private studio. The installation process is full of conversations and adjustments. We install over a weekend and the students are fully involved in making changes as we curate how people might interact with their artefacts. When walking through the curated exhibition you experience relationships between the themes being explored, therefore each artefact can stand as a primary source to the student’s personal architectural inquiry.

You’ve spoken about the importance of prefiguration, configuration and refiguration. Can you explain how these concepts are situated in your teaching?

SW: These terms come from Paul Ricoeur’s work on narrative, and they provide a useful way of understanding how architectural ideas take shape over time. "Prefiguration" refers to the cultural, historical, and personal frameworks that students bring with them—the stories, references, and experiences that shape how they see the world. This is where a project begins, often implicitly. "Configuration" is the act of making—through artefacts, drawings, and spatial constructs. Here, those initial conditions are reorganized and given form. Importantly, this is not a process of simply expressing an idea, but of discovering it through material engagement. "Refiguration" occurs when the work is encountered by others—through exhibitions like this one. At this stage, meaning is not fixed but reinterpreted. The project enters a broader cultural conversation and can be read in ways that extend beyond the student’s original intentions.

In the studio, these three moments are not linear steps but an ongoing cycle. The exhibition itself plays a crucial role in completing that cycle.

Why do you think this exhibition has been a consistent part of the MU Gallery’s schedule over the last ten years?

AF: Galleries are hubs for interdisciplinary research, and the Speculative Architecture exhibition is one of my favorite shows because it introduces audiences to the variety of ways we think, make and experience complex ideas. The interactive nature of the show and the methods that these grad students use to convey deeply personal and poetic ideas make each exhibit an exciting challenge for me as curator and the audience as participants. The artefacts emerge from research, critique and introspection but their creation is not an end. I appreciate that after the public presentation of these works in the Gallery that the artefacts then provoke architecture. This is not only how knowledge is spread, but how it is revealed.

What have you learned from a collaboration between SoDAA Architecture and the MU Gallery?

SW: One of the most important lessons has been the shift from thinking about architecture as something that is simply presented to something that is encountered. Working with the MU Gallery—and with Anthony in particular—has emphasized the importance of how work is installed, sequenced, and experienced in space. The exhibition is not a neutral container; it actively shapes how the projects are read and how they eventually unfold. This has had a direct impact on the studio. Students begin to think not only about what they are making, but how their work will be engaged—how drawings, artefacts, and texts relate to one another and produce meaning collectively. It has also reinforced the idea that architectural work can operate within a broader artistic and cultural context, without losing its disciplinary rigor. That balance has been central to the collaboration.

AF: Over the last ten years I have learned how differently we think about art and architecture since the enlightenment. I have also had the privilege of learning about the interests and experiences of the one-hundred+ grad students who have participated in the Speculative Architecture exhibitions over the years. Working with Dr. Wischer has also drastically changed how I approach teaching. I am grateful that NDSU Architecture has been such a great partner over the last ten years.

In June, both of you have been invited to present a talk and paper in Madrid about your research, collaboration and the impact on AI on architectural pedagogy. What do you feel about the future of architecture in this technological age?

AF: I think Dr. Wischer would agree that while technologies like AI, AutoCAD and SketchUp are useful tools in learning how to formally design, there is no replacement for the human in creating human-centered spaces. Conspicuously absent from digitally generated space is the sound, the feel, the culture, the personal story, the emotions or even a philosophy. I’m reminded of the aesthetic philosophy of wabi-sabi that centers the authentic, the imperfect, the impermeant and the incomplete as a way to better understand ourselves in our world.

SW: We are at a moment where technological tools—particularly those driven by AI—are becoming increasingly capable of producing images, forms, and even entire architectural proposals. While this presents new opportunities, it also raises important questions about authorship, imagination, and understanding. These are not exactly new questions, tools have always been a part of how we interact with and understand the world. The question today is the ease to which our tools can replace thought and how this will effect our ability to interpret. Artefact’s create enough resistance to actively demand a creative response. In other words, we are interested in how architecture can resist becoming purely a product of optimization or automation. The emphasis on artefacts, narrative, and material engagement is, in part, a response to this condition. It re-centers architecture as a process of thinking through making, rather than generating outcomes through tools alone.

The future of architecture, in this sense, will depend not only on what technologies can do, but on how we choose to engage them—whether they extend our capacity to think and imagine, or replace it.