THE DRIFT 
Prof. Kevin Sherrod | Abhay Narasimhan | January - May 2025


‘The Drift’: Video 
Abhay Narasimhan 
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COURSE DESCRIPTION:

ARCH 202b: Architectural Design II

This studio introduces materiality in architecture. Projects explore the conceptual and technical implications of different material systems. Consideration is given to both conventional and unconventional methods of assembly. This course offers a foundational introduction to material considerations in architectural design, specifically: properties and characteristics of material systems; methods of material assembly; techniques of drawing and modeling architectural materials.

CONTEXT:
This semester we will study materiality through the lens of climatic resiliency and consider an alternate future society that co-exists with extreme weather. The projected Extreme Events of our future world will serve as a design prompt to produce an architectural/tectonic proposal, as well as to consider design impact on societal operative patterns. 

The course structure leverages the availability of climatic data and the ease by which this data can be imported directly into architectural modeling software to provide accurate and measurable feedback on design versions and proposals. 

“A destabilized climate is exacerbating the severity of extreme weather events, worsening infectious and chronic diseases, and intensifying social and economic stresses. Some U.S. communities have access to resources that help them prepare, endure, and recover from these impacts. Many do not.” 

This current climatic “EPW” data will be supplemented with data from “The US Climate Vulnerability Index (CVI)” that provides historical and projected Extreme Weather Event Occurrences such as: Temperature, Wildfires, Precipitation, Drought, and Flooding. The CVI tool pulls 184 indicators from over 70,000 US Census integrating “cumulative impacts that can shape a community – from quality of housing and access to supermarkets to proximity to toxic waste sites.”1

Each site is remote (non-urban) and subject to projected extreme weather event occurrences. The program will be a service station (Park Ranger Station, Fire Station, etc.) that can respond to the site’s local crisis event. There should be at least two stories and a lookout tower with conventional stairs. 

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Drifter’s Manifesto (CONCEPT)  

Architectural Manifesto on a Temporal Ruralism, in Hurricane, Utah. As described by the Situationist International, the drifter is one that treats the city as a found object, and synthesizes their experiences as one of a series of situations. In this manner, I hope to ‘detourne’ (misappropriate) this idea of the drifter as the participant being in rural Utah. I propose (for a project on conceiving building enclosures resilient also to fire) to provide the framework through which the drifters landscape is produced. A kind of bounding box for creative explorations as well as sustenance. The idea is simple: the superstructure (composed of steel and glass) is produced within the fiery furnace, and fights fire with fire, and is thus fire resilient. The drifter carries with them the tools to produce a desired “indoor” space, perhaps a tent that takes the desired morphological form. And in the face of the threat of being burnt to a crisp, the drifter might relocate their produced indoor space elsewhere.

Here, Architecture, or a so-called perception of architecture seemingly merges with all other acts of daily life. Ere, daily life becomes art. Borrowing from the nomadic behavior of so many indigenous tribes across the world, and in Utah (Paiute), the way of life turns to not continuous resettlement but into a collection of social and natural interactions.

For if then the drifter understands, and internalises in their behaviours the rhythm of the fire, this becomes a migratory act, like the natural systems that follow such migrations.