Recordings + slides from my
@harvardgsd thesis performance “Bodybuildings”
Advised by
@french2d +
@millionsarchitecture
Live performers
@vincentjackow +
@emilypingjia
Named after
@diller_scofidio_renfro 1987 solo show at
@storefrontnyc
Conceptually indebted to “The Advanced School of Collective Feeling” by
@nilegreenberg + Matthew Kennedy
Produced in solidarity with
@architects4thf + grateful to
@malte.wilms @jolenelee___ @kirasciberras for a spring day together in the field
“Bodybuildings reimagines architecture as an extension of the human body—a prosthetic for living.
The project envisions three Baugruppen—cooperative group builds—self-built at the periphery of Tempelhof Field in Berlin as acts of defiance against the city’s creeping privatization. By typologically hybridizing the gymnasium and domestic space, collective habitation becomes an act of exercise, as architecture and its residents move, adapt, and perform together.
As such, these architectures are not static structures but living bodies shaped by the exertion of their occupants. Building components respond dynamically—like bone, muscle, and organs—to biological, cultural, and environmental forces. Drawing from the mechanics of simple machines, diverse physical cultures, and the logic of prosthetics, the project reimagines “self-building” as an embodied act—where fitness, labor, and habitation collapse into a radical expression of collective agency.
The project’s review takes the form of a multi-media performance—merging motion capture, thermal imaging, green screen environments, and live choreography—to evaluate and embody architectures and the exercises that build them through movement, exertion, and feedback, collapsing critique and corporeal experience.
Keywords: Embodiment, Devices, Prosthetic, Performance, Domesticity, Construction, Exercise, Collectivity, Carbon, Calorie”
