The Architecture Post The Conversation: Second Edition: Jordan Geiger

Last Tuesday I had this great occasion to discuss with Jordan Geiger, architect and educator for the second edition of The Architecture Post The Conversation.
Jordan Geiger is an architect and educator. His work combines architecture and interaction design to explore the interface between the environment, individuals and existing and emerging technologies.
Jordan Geiger contributes in important magazines and theoretical research (Architectural Design, Bracket, etc.). He also lectures and exhibits internationally.
His projects are Beau-Fleuve, Litmuscreen, Émission, Hyperculture: Earth as Interface, Microboundary/ Un-tolled Plazas, Day For Night, Flutter, Being/ Light, Vapor, and Zero Atmosphere Architecture.

Beau-Fleuve | Jordan Geiger Architects

Being/ Light | Jordan Geiger Architects

Litmuscreen | Jordan Geiger Architects

Émission | Jordan Geiger Architects

Vapor | Jordan Geiger Architects

Microboundary/ Un-tolled Plazas | Jordan Geiger Architects

Day For Night | Jordan Geiger Architects

Flutter | Jordan Geiger Architects

Hyperculture: Earth as Interface | Jordan Geiger Architects

Below I post the abstract of my conversation with Jordan Geiger:

The project is first of all a collaboration with another architect Virginia San Fratello who is based here in California, in Oakland. We began the project when I was still living in the San Francisco region. The project initially was a response to a request from my gallery in New York, a very progressive gallery with very interesting and long history. This is gallery called Exit Art. Exit Art has a 30 years history of engagement with social issues and social critique. And very sadly, the founding Director of the gallery died with cancer about a year ago. And the gallery has just closed but hopefully we participated before that the exhibition was called Consume, the call for the response to a book that has had an enormous influence in America. This is a book by a Journalist named Michael Pollan. And the book is called The Omnivore's Dilemma. He has a number of books and he has been growing in recognition in America about discussing relationship between food, society and health. And in the Omnivore's Dilemma, at one moment, he visits a farm in Iowa, he tries to understand the prevalence and the influence of corn. So he visits a farmer, a particular farmer. Virginia and I decided to visit the same farmer but to do it virtually…

And the podcast:






Suggested books: Michael Pollan | The Omnivore's Dilemma. A Natural History of Four Meals | Penguin, 2007
Anthony Dunne, Fiona Raby | Design Noir: The Secret Life of Electronic Objects | Princeton Architectural Press

Who are they?

Virginia San Fratello is a licensed, practicing architect with over 10 years of professional and academic experience. She is an Assistant Professor at San José State University. Prior academic appointments include the California College of the Arts and Clemson Univeristy, where she was the co-director of Clemson University's Charles E. Daniel Center for Building Research and Urban Studies in Genova, Italy. She has been a member of the Design Faculty at the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles and a Visiting Professor at the University of Arizona.
San Fratello's research revolves around the convergence of digital, ecological, and building component design in architecture. She was the recipient of Metropolis Magazine's Next Generation Design Award for her Hydro Wall concept and with Ronald Rael currently has a collection of recently designed masonry units which hold vegetation on display in New York. She is working with manufacturer/ distributors to launch these innovative and sustainable architectural building components into the market place.


Fiona Raby is professor of Industrial Design at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and reader in Design Interactions at the Royal College of Art. She is a partner in the design partnership Dunne & Raby, established in 1994.
Dunne and Raby use design as a medium to stimulate discussion and debate among designers, industry professionals and the public about the social, cultural and ethical implications of existing and emerging technologies. Their work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; and Science Museum, London, and is in the permanent collection of MoMA, New York; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; FRAC Centre, Orléans; and FNAC. She co-authored with Anthony Dunne Design Noir: The Secret Life of Electronic Objects (Birkhauser) and Hertzian Tales (MIT Press).

Anthony Dunne studied Industrial Design at the RCA before working at Sony Design in Tokyo. On returning to London he completed a PhD in Computer Related Design at the RCA. He was a founding member of the CRD Research Studio where he worked as a Senior Research Fellow leading EU and industry funded research projects. Between 1998 — 2004 he taught in Design Products where he jointly led Platform 3.
He is a partner in the design practice Dunne & Raby, his work with Fiona Raby explores how design can be used as a medium to stimulate discussion and debate amongst designers, industry and the public about the social, cultural and ethical implications of emerging technologies.
Their work has been exhibited and published international and is in the permanent collections of MoMA, the Victoria and Albert Museum, FRAC Centre, Orléans, and FNAC, as well as several private collections.
He received the Sir Misha Black Award for Innovation in Design Education in 2009.

Erratum: Contrary to what I said in the podcast, Hyperculture: Earth as Interface was designed in 2009 and not this year 2012. My apologies for this mistake.