Plants undergo various protocols that inhibit decomposition. Strategies can range from the secretion of plant resins to mineralization. Vegetal resin secretion is generated to protect from pathogens, including fungal deterioration, particularly in woody species. Dependent on the plant, protection mechanisms can also be accompanied by morphological changes in their tissue, producing encapsulation. Plants' unique material and structural defense strategies are multifold, spanning from resistance to microbial deterioration, harboring pathogens, to preventing water permeation. The MAAD studio inquires if defense strategies and intentional incorporation of bacteria and fungi in plant tissue, including woods, lead to unprecedented material functionalities in the built environment. Wood provides critical opportunities as a carbon sink material. Nevertheless, the environmental and factual carbon sink capacity of wood and wood products depends on various factors. Producing construction materials such as timber requires much energy to dry and process them. Concurrently, investing in the tree itself is only sometimes possible in an industry widely distributed among many small producers. This situation raises questions about what and how we should build with wood and whether the wood industry will be radically transformed. Such interrogations require assessing wood across dimensional and production scales spanning from the science of the cell wall to architectural design, engineering, and global policies. This studio revolves around these interrogations in conceptual production models and strategic-making investigations of wood innovation. This is exercised through the design of a mid-twenty-first-century wood "circular factory." The program is open to interpreting the meaning of a wood "factory" from a broad range of approaches, from a centralized to a distributive bio-based circular economy. The context of Oroville, CA, encompasses the riverbank of the Feather River in Oroville, CA, which remains one of the few lumber industries in the west. California's beleaguered timber industry produces many problems, from the need to import over 80% of its wood products to its role in wildfires due to unmanaged forestation. Consequently, rethinking the timber industry's role is vital for the region. The design investigation of a mid-twenty-first century "circular factory encompasses developing new concepts around wood technology and applications exploring innovation of systems, methods, organization, and material strategies specifically focused on increasing flooding and wildfire risks. The studio investigated the interdependency of wood innovation from master planning behavioral ecologies' AI models, tectonics, and robotics to material properties of combined wood waste byproducts, including oak bark and pine resin.

In March 2021, the Biden Administration released the American Jobs Plan, earmarking $213B for “quality” and “affordable” housing, yet the bill lacks specificity on how houses are to be built. Here housing’s problem is split into two: a social one of accessibility and equity, and a material one of wood, metal, and rocks. Architects can play a unique role in bridging abstract policy ambitions to real construction as these connections are made every day in practice.  Although accessible housing has been cast in many forms, accessory dwelling units (ADUs) have been a catalyst for including architects in direct policy development. For the first time, cities are directly contracting with architects to provide designs for private property through pre-approved ADU programs. These programs reflect a plurality of ideas, though without rigorous consideration for how the costs of site work, labor, materials, and energy make quality housing sustainable. Small Infrastructures is an exhibition of ADU designs that uses the economics of building assembly as the groundwork for experimentation, and addresses how cities can work with architects to build quality, affordable housing under the American Jobs Plan. Ten architects teaching at Harvard GSD and Berkeley CED consider the overlaps between academia, where cost is often external to conceptual work, and practice, where budgeting is an integral task. The architectural design of each office will be represented by two boards and a 3/8" = 1'-0" handmade architectural model. Curated by Michelle Chang and Rudabeh Pakravan

The first of a series of international exhibitions focused on the margins and suburbs of France and the United States, “In the Banlieues/Centering the Margin: Saint-Denis/Oakland” is presented during Summer 2022 in Paris, Saint-Denis, San Francisco and Oakland. Whatever you call them - banlieues, peripheries, suburbs - this exhibition highlights the symbolic pivot from the center to the periphery. Artistic movements, social struggles, urban innovations: Oakland, California and Saint-Denis, France are today exerting their influence and inventing solutions to the challenges posed by equity and the rapid urban development of metropolitan areas. “Bringing together a hybrid corpus of images, archives, models, paintings, artistic installations, objects, and videos, this exhibition explores cultural and inhabitant practices in urban planning. They are composed of places, people, and stories, drawings – far from clichés - portraits of composite urban areas on the peripheries. There is an urgency, today, to recognize and understand the day-to-day experiences of those who live, work and create in our cities.” - June Grant and Laure Gayet, co-curators of the exhibition The exposition is co-produced by the Pavillon de l’Arsenal; the Villa Albertine in San Francisco and California Humanities ; in partnership with SPUR San Francisco, la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme Paris Nord; with the support of the foundation 836M, l’Institut Français, la Fondation Art Explora; in collaboration with the cities of Oakland and Saint-Denis, Périféeries and with the participation of ARTE. Generously sponsored by the Yerba Buena Community Benefit District.