Interview With Eric Goldemberg Of MONAD Studio

Eric Goldemberg: Fabio, it is my pleasure to try at answering this question by stating that I might not match any of the job descriptions you mention, or I may be all of them at the same time ... however I like rather the unidentified alternative much better because it provides me and my partner Veronica Zalcberg the chance to keep challenging any tags that individuals may wish to apply to our activities and ruminations.
I am likewise an academic (I am a full-time teacher and digital style planner at the School of Architecture at FIU - Florida International University in Miami), a book author, exhibits curator & producer, even a video artist and basic cultural scavenger too-- you should see the kinds of weird things that are built up at our MONAD Studio storage facility! ... however let's just state that 'architect' is an all-encompassing term that synthesizes our spatial engagement with the world of design, which 3D digital design and fabrication is our medium of choice, our proficiency that allows us access to other channels of expression.
3dd: So what is with the snorkeling? I think the photo on the website is genius!
EG: Yes, it is casual and rather funny but likewise expresses our existential angst; the immersion into a liquid medium where one is devoid of bounding coordinates frees the senses to collar spatial relations of the body through multiplicitous vectorial trajectories that otherwise would be obscured by conventions and assumptions about how the world is to be viewed. Through our work we question specifically the rhythmicity of the cognitive procedure; we have an interest in the affects of understanding and the capacity to inflect such perceptual activity; to provoke, to tease, and to change the physical environment via digital methods; some individuals call that architecture and we do not disagree with them.
3dd: I am sure no one has actually ever asked you the most simple question. What is it for you architecture?
EG: I would state that architecture is a shifting ground due to the fact that the term is nowadays being utilized for all sorts of things beyond the domain of architecture itself; it has been co-opted by political campaigns, by the business world in basic, as well as becoming an 'autonomus knowledge' term that explains the structure or procedure of the "becoming" of anything, truly.
For MONAD Studio architecture refers both to a hardcore family tree of our disciplinar formation-- I worked with Peter Eisenman and Asymptote Architecture/Hani Rashid + Lise Anne Couture; and Veronica worked with a group of Greg Lynn, F.O.A./ Alejandro Zaera-Polo + Farshid Moussavi, UN Studio/Ben van Berkel + Caroline Bos, and RUR/Jesse Reiser + Nanako Umemoto in New York -, as well as the opportunity to check out a network of art collaborations through design, beyond what would be conceived as the limits of the discipline; this is done through exhibit style, digitally fabricated paintings and sculptures, cooperations with video-artists and artists, etc. In any case, our explorations of that limit are constantly made with the lens and the mind of a designer, constantly seeking for a spatial-emotional measurement of any issue at hand. Simply put, although we get involved on numerous various mediums, we constantly operate as designers that we are.
An excellent example of our technique to architecture is the Memorial for the Victims of the Tsunami in Thailand, where there is a psychological reaction to the coming from disaster and yet it is arranged spatially into elements that distribute the perceptual charge throughout a field condition, engaging the superb scale of the affected landscape and arranging the territory for architecturally fluid experiences. The courtyard formations weave courses whereby there is a break-down in the magnitude of the event which comes back to haunt as the memory of several micro-events ripple in succession, linked flawlessly down the mountain and all the way to the beach and ocean blue. The task made the most of an existing drainage channel and magnified it to enhance the spectacle of water partly flooding the yards, increasing and reducing according to necessary rhythms that customize the affective field throughout the multiplicitous courtyards and therefore producing an area for contemplation, an area to experience the depth of the interaction in between memory and identity.
3dd: Monad Studio's design work as you already discussed is shared with your partner. Can you present us better likewise to Veronica Zalcberg?
EG: Veronica and I have been partners in architecture and in life practically 20 years, since undergraduate school in Buenos Aires, Argentina! We share all design tasks, and she is likewise my inspiration; she has a wild spirit that takes place through her paintings and it returns to our styles through mysterious feedback procedures; up until now her art work functions on a parallel measurement-- despite the fact that we do all in the very same warehouse-- however there is an unspoken viral contamination across her painter activity and our architecture. Veronica is also now leading our nascent furnishings and item style venture which is difficult MONAD to continue the refinement of digital fabrication strategies, pushing the sensibility of in-depth resolution and assembly procedures that industrial items need. This pursuit feeds also into our architectural projects such as the Lincoln Road Capacitors, the Tower in Buenos Aires and the MoMA-P.S. 1 Installation in New York where attention to pristine, tidy lines and a break-down of parts into rhythmically charged modularity enable a high degree of control of the final product and its process of fabrication.
3dd: I like the statment: 'Monad Studio is a design research practice with concentrate on spatial understanding related to balanced affect.' Can you discuss to us what you suggest by that?
EG: Our practice is concentrated on teasing architectural effects related to the perception of rhythms in space, improved by digital technology and fluid, three-dimensional style.
This is better explained in my approaching book 'Pulsation in Architecture' which is coming out in late September published by J.Ross Publishing Inc. and I think it can be a contribution to our field at a time when digital architecture is begging for a (more culturally robust) agenda beyond a simple instrumentality.
A study of practices about our perceptual capability to sense rhythmic affect in area, it resonates with Antoine Picon's version of efficiency in architecture.
It highlights the function of digital design as catalyst for a brand-new spatial perceptiveness associated to rhythmic perception. It proposes an unique crucial reception of computational architecture based in the potential for the reception of digital design to engage with core elements of the discipline such as time-based operations and efficiency. The generative engine of digital architecture reinvigorates a discourse of part-to-whole relationships through the lens of rhythmic affect.
There is a paradigm shift in spatial understanding due to the intensive usage of computational techniques and the capacity to morph huge amounts of information into spatial patterns of efficiency. Pulsation presents the basic animate capability of living form and improves our understanding of architectural space throughout the multiple scales of a task, from digital beginning to fabrication.
An emerging thread of rhythmic sensibility binds loosely a study of practices consisting of contributions by Peter Eisenman, EMBT/Miralles-Tagliabue, Jeffrey Kipnis, Greg Lynn, UN Studio/Van Berkel-Bos, P.Scott Cohen, RUR/Reiser+Umemoto, Asymptote, Ali Rahim, Minimaforms/Theo Spyropoulos, Hernan Diaz Alonso, Ruy-Klein, Gage-Clemenceau, Commonwealth/Boira-Coombes, NOX/Lars Spuybroek, Evan Douglis, Ed Keller, Kokkugia/Roland Snooks, and others.
3dd: You have such a worldwide background and you have invested so much time working in Argentina! Your work however is extremely different from what we generally see coming out of South American offices. Were your work and your orientation towards architecture constantly so comparable to what you do today or did they evolve in time?
EG: My parents were both designers and academics in Argentina with a big practice bought huge social real estate complexes, done primarily throughout the 70's. The systemic nature of those jobs is in my blood stream, no doubt about that. The interest in issues referring to repeating and difference, rhythmic perception, and memory & identity have to do with that heritage and our interest in the concepts of the progressive in New York are also to be traced back to that early formation; both Veronica and I craved what was going on at Columbia University for a long time while designing and constructing our early projects in Buenos Aires, and we finally went to study at Columbia in 2001-2002, which was a seminal experience for the kind of work we do now. But the interest in complexity theory was there prior to emigrating to do our Masters. We feel today that our work is arriving at a plateau of interest and sophistication that can just be possible by combining our South American origin with the strong desire for the experience at the American academia, especially the exposure to the digital culture that was so hot throughout our remain at Columbia-- where I later taught studios with Hernan Diaz Alonso and Hani Rashid too. I would say that the expert development we brought from Argentina obtained a particular expansive measurement as we got immersed in academic community, generating a productive feedback in between the two milieus.
Being from Argentina, we bring a certain intensity, passion, and ingenuity to resolving and approaching design problems that distinguishes our practice and provides it a particular flavor that is the outcome of being awake, all senses inform to deepen expressive opportunities presented by every task, be it a structure, an art installation, a book, or a painting. They are all approached with the muscle of the naked eye.
3dd: The work that you display online on www.monadstudio.net is a great teaser for conversations on what the future could be or likewise on what today should look like. Is there a real feasibility behind these jobs?
EG: Absolutely! We are now on developmental phase of 3 projects that function as vehicles for the expedition of the essential technology. One of them is The Wolfsonian-FIU Museum exhibit task where we are operating in various capabilities, from co-curators to producers and designers of the exhibit installation that will display Art Nouveau items from the museum's collections developed by the likes of Hector Guimard, Henry van de Velde, and Victor Horta, in dialogue with digitally produced items designed by modern designers such as Greg Lynn, Hernan Diaz Alonso, Mark Gage, and David Ruy.
Our screen system includes numerous vitrine-environments woven together by a system of 'elevated roots' that develop the visual story and support the lighting and atmosphere of The Wolfsonian's galleries. We are going through the process of studying numerous iterations of high-density foam covered with polyurethane-treated paint, and a lot of sanding! The most difficult part is calibrating the trim of the polygonal modeling so that one can subdivide the topologies of the components and rationalize the assembly: simply put, we are trying to determine how to cut the salami, appropriately!
3dd: This is an actually cool metaphor the among the salami! Now, I am going to ask you this just because otherwise our readers will ask it to me instead! Which software do you use the most?
EG: I utilize primarily Maya for 3D modeling; it is nearly a 3rd partner! We likewise utilize a variety of software application for the different stages of a job, including Rhino for digital fabrication and 3D Max for visualization.
3dd: Is there a specific relationship in between the software application you utilize and the kind of architecture you produce? I see in your work a lot of polygonal and natural modeling, is this the result of your computer skills or something you were pursuing straight with your imagination?
EG: Working within the constraint and the reasoning of any provided software is primordial to taking full advantage of the expressive capacity of the work that is going to come out, as well as being able to set yourself up to be 'stunned' by combinatorial reasonings and unmatched relational results. We do not seek total understanding of a provided software application; rather, we select to focus in a few various tools that permit us to generate our design strategies, be it polygonal modeling or nurbs surfaces driven. Equipped with this intimate understanding of what is possible within the restrictions of the tools, the quest is to take full advantage of the refinement of our visual objectives in regards to meeting a project's architectural or creative agenda. Such program is what drives the habits of the kinds and not the other way around. We are not anticipating what is the most recent gizmo or the current brand-new tool set, we prefer to buy a greater degree of know-how within a range of recognized results that can result in an even narrower architectural research.



For MONAD Studio architecture refers both to a hardcore family tree of our disciplinar development-- I worked with Peter Eisenman and Asymptote Architecture/Hani Rashid + Lise Anne Couture; and Veronica worked with a team of Greg Lynn, F.O.A./ Alejandro Zaera-Polo + Farshid Moussavi, UN Studio/Ben van Berkel + Caroline Bos, and RUR/Jesse Reiser + Nanako Umemoto in New York -, as well as the opportunity to explore a network of art collaborations through design, outside of what would be conceived as the limits of the discipline; this is done through exhibit design, digitally made paintings and sculptures, partnerships with video-artists and artists, etc. We share all style tasks, and she is likewise my inspiration; she has a wild spirit that transpires through her paintings and it comes back to our styles through strange feedback processes; so far her art work functions on a parallel measurement-- even though we do all in the very same storage facility-- however there is an unspoken viral contamination throughout her painter activity and our architecture. It proposes a novel important reception of computational architecture based in the capacity for the reception of digital design to engage with core elements of the discipline such as time-based operations and performance. The interest in concerns relating to repetition and difference, rhythmic perception, and memory & identity have to do with that heritage and our interest in the ideas of the progressive in New York are likewise to be traced back to that early development; both Veronica and I craved what was going on at Columbia University for a long time while designing and developing our early jobs in Buenos Aires, and we finally went to study at Columbia in 2001-2002, which was an influential experience for the type of work we do now. One of them is The Wolfsonian-FIU Museum exhibition job where we are operating in various capabilities, from co-curators to producers and designers of the exhibition setup that will display Art Nouveau objects from the museum's collections designed by the likes of Hector Guimard, Henry van de Velde, and Victor Horta, in dialogue with digitally made items created by modern architects such as Greg Lynn, Hernan Diaz Alonso, Mark Gage, and David Ruy.