Status: Partially built. Construction interrupted due to c-19.
Date Completed: 2020
Location: Fusebox Festival Social Hub Austin, TX.
Sponsor: Fusebox Festival
Filters design & Fabrication: Natalie Avellar, Nai’lah Bell, Elizabeth Cooper, Grace Esslinger, Baxter Estes, Hannah Harden, Anna Henry, Paola Hernandez, Michelle Huh, Abigail Kash, Elena Lyra, Marjan Miri, Payton Russell, Taylor Schill, and Lisa Yang. (UT architecture and ID students).
Consultants: Joyce Hwang (Double Happines), Jen Wong (Director at the Materials Lab - UT), Shalene Jha (Dptment. of Integrative Biology - UT), Felicity Muth (Dptment. of Integrative Biology - UT), Don Swaynos (Editor of Bug Filter film)
Bug Filter was developed in the context of an Advanced design studio course held at UTSOA (Spring 2020).
Students participated in the design of a series of outdoor furnishings for Austin’s Fusebox Festival, a city-wide celebration predominantly featuring live performances. The course asked students to use the intervention in this public venue, to raise attention towards the endangerment of local pollinators by allowing us to share their subjective perception.
What if we could experience the world through a non-anthropocentric lens? To explore these questions, students examined the way ornamentation and pattern could capture the fascinating world of insect vision. After researching local pollinators and bee cognition in consultation with the department of Integrative Biology at UT, students conducted applied research, the translation of knowledge into making.
Students individually designed and fabricated acrylic filters that would enable visitors to see the world as if through the eyes of arthropods. Engaging directly with materials and building technologies at real scale drove the designs in this studio. While exploring a multispecies conception of the built environment, students discovered new aesthetics, optical effects, and visual pleasures.
Hempcrete utilizes the woody core of the hemp plant and a lime-based binder. This construction material locks carbon dioxide, creating what American Lime Technology calls “better-than-zero buildings.” Industrial hemp’s high concentration of pollen could significantly increase bee populations according to research from Colorado State University.
These filters were an integral part of compound furnishings that included seating accommodations. With the assistance of the Materials Lab at UT, students casted the seats out of hempcrete, an alternative cast-in-place concrete made from renewable resources.