Expanded Practice: Howeler + Yoon Architecture / My Studio

Softcover | 19.37 x 1.8 x 23.5 cm | 207 pp

Princeton Architectural Press | 2009 | 9781568988665

As rising stars in Boston's design scene, architects Eric Hõweler and J. Meejin Yoon developed a reputation for radical experiments in architectural form. Their expanded practice combines intense research with interdisciplinary experimentation.

Howeler and Yoon's sensational, competition-winning lighting entry for the 2004 Athens Olympics exemplifies their fearless approach - without any prior experience in public space interactive design, the firm constructed a luminous, interactive soundscape installation at the base of the Acropolis. White Noise White Light featured a field of semi-flexible fibre-optic strands that emitted white light and white noise in response to the movement of pedestrians. The project, an enormous success, enchanted a multitude of visitors who moved amidst the cilia of light. Expanded Practice presents twenty-nine recent projects encompassing a broad range of scales and media.

The projects, divided into distinct but often overlapping research themes, include a museum courtyard program inspired by the Voronoi cell-packing algorithm (PS1 Loop); an outdoor light installation featuring hovering cones that capture and interact with solar energy, rainwater, and sound (Hover); a garment designed to turn inside out as it unravels (Mobius Dress); and a landscape design that weaves technology and texture into an integrated and interactive landscape (Tripanel). Packed with drawings, diagrams, and photographs of each project's design process, Expanded Practice provides an inspirational look into one of the most exciting firms working in architecture today.