The renowned Hylozoic Series by Waterloo Architecture Professor Philip Beesley and the Near-Living Architecture group has been selected as a Finalist for the Architizer A+ Awards in the Plus Categories | Architecture +Art category. Since the series began with Hylozoic Soil at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in 2007, hundreds of Waterloo undergraduate and graduate students, as well as collaborators from Electrical and Computer Engineering and Knowledge Integration, have contributed to this ever-evolving work. The newest installation in the series, Epiphyte Chamber, was recently exhibited at the new National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) in Seoul, Korea, and upcoming works will be presented in Berlin and Washington.
The Hylozoic Series, an iteration of which has been called “a hanging garden of near-conscious robotic flora,” utilizes mechanical and electronic components, synthetic biology, and distributed computing integrated with lightweight structures to generate responsive spaces. The components of the installations interact with visitors as well as with each other – 2013’s Radiant Soil was the first in the series to use a “peer-to-peer” system rather than running signals through a central controller. It was also the first to use scent, although many of the others have interacted with the visual and haptic senses through light and motion sensors.
The Hylozoic Series has received extensive press coverage and several awards, and is now up for the Architizer A+ Popular Choice Award in the Plus Categories | Architecture +Art category.
The online public chooses the Architizer A+ Popular Choice Award. A+ Public Voting started on March 4th and will continue until March 21st. Please support Philip and his Waterloo collaborators by voting for the Hylozoic Series!
Please visit the following link
http://awards.architizer.com/
and vote for the ‘Hylozoic Series’ Project submission today.
More detail can be seen at www.philipbeesley.com.
All images via http://architizer.com/projects/the-hylozoic-series/.
I am a graduate student at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture, currently completing my MArch thesis on the design and collective memory of Indian residential schools in Canada.
