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Digital Structures MIT

@digitalstructuresmit

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Directed by Prof. Caitlin Mueller.
Architecture and engineering, computational design/fabrication, for a sustainable, equitable, and creative future.

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My new pavilions design investigate how manipulating optical vibration, and visual adaptation, psychedelic palettes create phenomena that blur the distinction btw motion and stillness, depth and surface, reality and perception.

Using @midjourney

#aiarchitecture #psychedelic #opart #midjourneyaiart #illusionart

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My new hypnotic AI-generated pavilions where optical illusion, phantom motion, and distorted perception dissolve the boundary between space and mind. (Using #midjourney )

#aidesign #illusion #opticalillusion #opart

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A collaboration with @kiley_fi @keith_j_l and @juliana.bb within @digitalstructuresmit, Make/Shift proposes a system that takes advantage of the non-standard lengths of recovered black locust stock to defy orthogonal norms and create a structural system that embraces variability and flexibility, enclosing a space for storing second-life materials and hosting educational workshops.

This structure breaks from the standards of
conventional stick-framing: multi-part “stud” frames are nailed together and transformed into arches, battens are forced out of horizontal alignment due to the set lengths of the stock pieces, and shingles register the underlying variation on the exterior.

Through computational sampling, assignment, and analysis, the design space created by the constrained inventory is applied to a flexible system, where any selected geometry is guaranteed to be
structurally efficient for point loads acting at the joints of the frame. A new design ethos for the circular economy also requires reversibility, materializing in Make/Shift’s simple moment connections that can be disassembled to
allow the structure to be moved, repaired, and reconfigured. #designforreuse

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#digitalart

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Three days of screenings, talks and reflections marked the closing of The Next Earth at Palazzo Diedo. From György Kepes’s visionary dialogue between art and science, to MIT’s seminar on sustainable forestry and wood innovation, to the final panel Shaping Climate Objects, the programme brought together filmmakers, architects and researchers for a shared reflection on how creativity can shape our planetary future.

#BiennaleArchitettura2025 #IntelliGens #TheNextEarth #PlanetaryComputation #BerggruenInstitute #MITArchitecture @labiennale

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As The Next Earth approaches its final week, Palazzo Diedo presents a series of closing events dedicated to film, research, and shared reflection on art, architecture, and environmental thinking.

From the legacy of György Kepes to new approaches to wood innovation and climate-oriented design, these final days bring together filmmakers, scholars, and architects to reconsider how we think about materials, media, and the built environment.

Below is the programme:

György Kepes: Interthinking Art + Science
Screening and conversation with director Márton Orosz and media art curator and art historian Francesca Franco
Thursday, November 20, 2025 - 6:30 PM
Black Box, Palazzo Diedo
Duration: 98 minutes
Free entrance until capacity is met

The documentary examines the legacy of György Kepes, founder of the “Bauhaus of MIT,” who championed collaboration between artists and scientists to expand perception and ecological awareness. The film opens an urgent question: can technology be used to protect us from technology itself?

Seeing the Forest for the Trees
Online seminar presented by the MIT Department of Architecture and WholeTrees Structures
Friday, November 21, 2025 — 3:00 to 5:00 PM
Online, held in English
Speakers will be present at Palazzo Diedo, while the public will join remotely.
The discussion will focus on sustainable forestry and wood innovation.
A dedicated registration link will be available via the link in bio on our website.

Shaping Climate Objects
Panel discussion and preview of the forthcoming publication Climate Objects (MIT/SA+P Press, 2026)
Saturday, November 22, 2025 — 2:00 to 4:00 PM
Palazzo Diedo

This closing conversation brings together designers, theorists, and researchers to explore how every architectural project produces an object with agency in the climate crisis.
Speakers include Sheila Kennedy, Nicholas de Monchaux, Caitlin Mueller, Skylar Tibbits, and Calvin Zhong (MIT), with respondent Lionel Devlieger.

🏛️ The Next Earth
📍 Palazzo Diedo, Berggruen Arts & Culture
🗓️ 10.05 – 23.11.2025

#BiennaleArchitettura2025 #IntelliGens #TheNextEarth #PlanetaryComputation #BerggruenInstitute #MITArchitecture @labiennale

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A digital material bank for the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale.

Developed for Future Assemblies @future_assemblies in collaboration with the MIT Digital Structures Lab @digitalstructuresmit, we built a digital material passport system for Pixelframe, a modular precast construction technology that rethinks how buildings can be disassembled and reassembled over time.

The application serves as Pixelframe’s digital twin, linking each physical element to a living inventory. Every component can be scanned through an embedded RFID tag to reveal its full record— location, performance, condition, and carbon footprint over time. Users can explore assemblies, trace provenance, and follow materials as they move between prototypes, active structures, and reuse.

By linking each module to its material history, the system makes reuse practical, allowing for reconfiguration across building sites through digital traceability.

@labiennale @mitarchitecture
“From Liquid to Stone”

#venicebiennale #intelligens

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A digital material bank for the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale.

Developed for Future Assemblies @future_assemblies in collaboration with the MIT Digital Structures Lab @digitalstructuresmit, we built a digital material passport system for Pixelframe, a modular precast construction technology that rethinks how buildings can be disassembled and reassembled over time.

The application serves as Pixelframe’s digital twin, linking each physical element to a living inventory. Every component can be scanned through an embedded RFID tag to reveal its full record— location, performance, condition, and carbon footprint over time. Users can explore assemblies, trace provenance, and follow materials as they move between prototypes, active structures, and reuse.

By linking each module to its material history, the system makes reuse practical, allowing for reconfiguration across building sites through digital traceability.

@labiennale @mitarchitecture
“From Liquid to Stone”

#venicebiennale #intelligens

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VAMO — vegetal, animal, mineral, other, a collaborative #installation by @ethzurich, the massachusetts institute of technology (@mit), and global partners is presented in the corderie of the arsenale.   the project proposes #architecture as a regenerative act, lightweight, circular, and impermanent. anchored to a historic brick column, it interlaces tilted wooden compression rings and a tensile hemp-rope network, spanning 6.5 meters. developed through ariadne and theseus, digital tools by mit’s digital structures group (@digitalstructuresmit), its geometry adapts to each reclaimed component.   the wooden rings reuse salvaged beams from the huber and music pavilions in switzerland, crafted through 5-axis CNC milling and traditional joinery by @anku.swiss, merging digital precision with artisanal skill. the canopy is composed of emerging biodegradable and repurposed #materials, each carrying its own story of transformation, collectively forming a habitat of textures, smells, and colors.   after the biennale, it will be relocated to a forest in #switzerland, where it will decompose and return to the soil, completing its own material #loop.
#vamo #circulararchitecture  
images by @marcozorzanello

#biennaleBOOM
#biennalearchitettura #venicearchitecturebiennale #biennalearchitettura2025 #venicearchitecturebiennale2025 #IntelliGens @labiennale

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“Art and Data Team Up Against Climate Change” by @annabelfkeenan is out now in @nytimes , highlighting how artists are responding to climate change and reimagining the role of museums in this conversation.

Grateful for this thoughtful feature and for the recognition of how art can inspire reflection and action toward our shared environmental future.

Read the full article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/arts/design/climate-change-art-museum.html
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#JanetEchelman #PublicArt #ClimateChange #ArtAndEnvironment #Sculpture #InstallationArt #ContemporaryArt #TheNewYorkTimes #SustainableArt #EnvironmentalArt

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A material bank for the future of construction and circularity. Can we use digital infrastructure to surface new material intelligences and enable circular economies at scale?

As part of From Liquid to Stone at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale @labiennale, we were invited to contribute a digital material passport system for Pixelframe, a modular precast construction system developed by @future_assemblies and @digitalstructuresmit at @mitarchitecture.

We created a mobile platform that catalogs each Pixelframe component through tagged RFID chips. Visitors can scan any element in the installation to access its full material record, revealing its carbon emissions, fabrication history, and movement across sites and assemblies.

#biennalearchitettura2025 #intelligens

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Opening to the public at the Biennale Architettura 2025 (@labiennale), curated by Carlo Ratti (@crassociati), May 10–November 23, VAMO—Vegetal, Animal, Mineral, Other—is part of the main exhibition “Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective.”

A collaboration between ETH Zurich (@ethzurich), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (@MIT), and other partners, VAMO explores how circular design, computation, and material reuse can inform new context-sensitive approaches to building.

Presented in the Corderie of the Arsenale, the installation’s structure interlaces wooden compression rings with an anticlastic tensile network of spliced hemp-rope cable net, spanning 6.5 m in pure tension. It displays a palette of circular & biodegradable cladding materials made from waste wool (COBI, Manteco), pineapple peels (Vérabuccia®), spent coffee grounds (Cortado), coconut husks (Kokus), wood biomass / biopolymers (Hera Materials, DumoLab Research), leather dust and collagen (ReLea Core). Surrounding the installation, stools made from reclaimed wood display waste Murano glass (rehub).

Designed & fabricated across Zurich, CH, and Cambridge, USA, it was assembled in Venice with disassembly and reuse in mind. After the Biennale, VAMO will be relocated to Switzerland to be reused and then slowly biodegrade.

🔗 Learn more, download the VAMO booklet + find a full list of credits at link in bio

Thank you to the many partners:
– Computational form-finding: @digitalstructuresmit
– Material Upcycling: ETH Zurich’s Circular Engineering for Architecture (@catherinedewolf)
– Woodcraft: @anku.swiss
– Materials: @mitdesignx; MIT MAD (@mitdesignacademy); & MITdesignX Venice w/ local partner @serendpt_venezia, supported the development & acceleration of teams such as @cobi.build, Cortado, Hera Materials (@atacama_biomaterials), Kokus, @rehub.glass, and @Verabucciabrand. Additional materials teams include @dumolab Research, based at the @uofpenn @weitzman_school, ReLea Core, based at @polimi, and @manteco_official, a leader in high-end circular textiles.
– Special thanks to @targetti_lighting for providing VADER spotlights.

@mitarchitecture | @mitsap | @lloydleephotography

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