About this ebook
ECHOS is a platform for simultaneous conversations with shared ethos at UC SAID. Various constellations begin to surface and map our diverse milieu of academic and social interactions that revolve around the following five main themes: anxiety, praxis, trope, chreod, and utopia. Introduced by a series of analytical diagrams which are paired up with essays by lead figures in the discipline, the themes expand on the issues of theoretical anxiety, architectural discourse, practice, typology, self-made analogies, ad hoc morphologies inherent to research, flux and reflux - that return each disruption to a steady trajectory - similar to the natural cycle of compression and release generated by our co-op program, and the fictitious, the ideal.
Anxiety collects and synthesizes among multiple contradicting theories entertaining with equanimity various solutions to design problems. Praxis looks at outcomes - may those be physical, prototypical, digital or analog, multi-dimensional and multi-media, spoken, written or unwritten - as well as working methodologies that shape design thinking. Trope begins to map out trends, emergent ideologies, and previously non-denominational design expressions. Chreod documents and interprets field conditions, rule based processes, issues of transgressions, non-smooth and nomadic entities which cut across arbolic like divisions. Utopia, while suspending various otherwise necessary constraints, allows for a euphoric and optimistic view of the world, with the goal of envisioning daring possibilities otherwise unimaginable. Utopia, therefore, foreshadows all other themes.
About the author
Mara Marcu is a designer and educator who understands space as having an ineffable power over people due to a primitive 'built in' intelligence. Various projects, therefore, explore this psychological charge of architecture by looking into the symbolism and mythology of space, using as tools the technological advancements of our times. Mara Marcu has received her Bachelor of Architecture, with honors, from the University of Houston Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture in 2005 and her Master of Architecture from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design in 2009. In 2010 Mara completed the International Master Class with Pritzker Prize winner, Mr. Glenn Murcutt in Sydney, Australia and was selected to work in 2005 with Brian MacKay-Lyons, in Nova Scotia, Canada, for Ghost Lab 7. She has been awarded the Best in Show Design Award from the University of Houston upon graduation, which is the highest prize given by the school for design excellence and has been nominated for the James Templeton Kelley Prize at Harvard GSD. Her professional experience resumed in New York City for Rafael Vinoly Architects, BKSK and Ed Mills and Associates and in Houston for DesignLAB Houston. She currently provides architectural, product and fashion design services under the umbrella of MM13. Beginning with summer 2009 Mara became a registered LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Accredited Professional.
