Xenoaesthetics
A Posthumanist Approach to Architectural Encounter
Prologue by Graham Harman.
London: Bloomsbury, 2026.
Book︎︎︎
Examining our relationships with architecture beyond human-centric perspectives, Xenoaesthetics challenges conventional views of design and space inhabitation by exploring the architectural project as an autonomous entity.
Drawing together insights from philosophy and architecture, this book delves into the conditions, roles, and implications of architectural encounters, conceptualising the architectural project as a site of unity-multiplicity tension, and introducing the concept of xenoaesthetics as a cognitive mode attuned to this structure. This approach invites readers to reimagine architectural experience as a dual action that reveals the project to us and realizes itself through us. As well as implying disciplinary consequences for design questions, Vaillo's work holds socio-political significance for our everyday architectural interactions, contributing to the quest for practices and discourses on equality. Methodologically, his argument draws from Object-Oriented Ontology and the architect Enric Miralles, offering an additional retrospective crossover that enriches both references.
A resource for students, architects, scholars, and enthusiasts interested in exploring architecture beyond assumptions and prescribed value systems, Xenoaesthetics encourages a deeper understanding of the intricate relationship between humans and the architectural project.
Drawing together insights from philosophy and architecture, this book delves into the conditions, roles, and implications of architectural encounters, conceptualising the architectural project as a site of unity-multiplicity tension, and introducing the concept of xenoaesthetics as a cognitive mode attuned to this structure. This approach invites readers to reimagine architectural experience as a dual action that reveals the project to us and realizes itself through us. As well as implying disciplinary consequences for design questions, Vaillo's work holds socio-political significance for our everyday architectural interactions, contributing to the quest for practices and discourses on equality. Methodologically, his argument draws from Object-Oriented Ontology and the architect Enric Miralles, offering an additional retrospective crossover that enriches both references.
A resource for students, architects, scholars, and enthusiasts interested in exploring architecture beyond assumptions and prescribed value systems, Xenoaesthetics encourages a deeper understanding of the intricate relationship between humans and the architectural project.
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Halfforms – Halfway
Schmidbaur, Karolin, Lukas Allner, and Gonzalo Vaíllo. Department of Experimental Architecture
Building Design and Construction, University of Innsbruck, 2025.
Book︎︎︎
Halfforms – Halfways is a publication documenting the architectural research project Halfforms developed between 2023 and 2025, marking the midpoint of the funded research period. The book brings together the project’s main architectural works, material studies, experimental methods, and theoretical concepts, alongside related teaching formats and pedagogical experiments. Rather than presenting finalized results, the publication reflects the research as an ongoing process, tracing how questions of material agency, design, and construction have evolved through practice-based investigation. By assembling projects, protocols, and reflections across different scales and contexts, Halfforms – Halfways offers an interim account of the research and opens a perspective on its future development.
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Forma Exquisita
Esquivel, Gabriel, Jordi
Vivaldi, and Gonzalo Vaíllo. Edited by Maximiliano
Schianchi. Archivos 1. Buenos Aires: Instituto de Arquitectura, 2025.
Full book︎︎︎
This issue presents an edited and expanded transcript of the online Roundtable discussion on Form held by Gabriel Esquivel, Gonzalo Vaíllo, and Jordi Vivaldi, as part of the Exquisite Form Summer Festival of the Institute of Architecture on Friday, December 17, 2021.
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(Un)fitting Aggregations
Material-dependent Production and Spielraum of Distinct Vulcanized Fiber Pieces
Allner,
Lukas, Karolin Schmidbaur, and Gonzalo Vaíllo. In ACADIA 2024: Design Change, 1:81–92. Calgary: Association
for Computer Aided Design in Architecture, 2024.
Full article︎︎︎
This study explores the integration of
unpredictable material behavior within architectural design and production,
specifically examining the properties and potential of vulcanized fiber (VF) in
the multiple realizations of the simple design of a 3 x 3 checkered pattern. It
challenges traditional production methodologies—standardized mass production,
digital mass customization, and discrete combinatorial approach—by introducing
the notion of material-dependent production. This approach is exemplified by
the distinctive morphological and mechanical transformations that VF undergoes
during the drying production process, leading to each piece uniquely shaping
itself. The divergence between the initial design of the pattern and the
singular resulting pieces leads to an array of different and unexpected
aggregation possibilities to construct the pattern. The highly local and
situated pattern-part relation and its variability for diverse outcomes are
conceptualized following Lars Spuybroek’s notion of Spielraum or “room to
play.” This concept, understood as both physical space and space of
possibilities, is defined by the material agency embedded in the pieces and the
organizational guidance of the pattern. Methodologically, computational analysis
is employed to calculate the number of feasible pattern realizations attending
to the assembly tolerances of the morphological diversity of the VF pieces. In
this sense, the study bridges computational techniques and material specificity
to understand the threshold (or Spielraum) between the designed pattern and
material-informed parts. The findings of this study advocate for a reevaluation
of material agency in architectural processes, demonstrating that an embrace of
material contingency and indeterminacy enriches architectural production and
creativity.