News/Research

Nicholas de Monchaux and Neyran Turan in 7x7

26 Sep, 2018

Nicholas de Monchaux and Neyran Turan in 7x7

Nicholas de Monchaux's Modem and Neyran Turan's Nemestudio were featured in 'YBCA Celebrates Architects and Designers Building the Bay Area's Future' in 7x7! The article, by Shoshi Parks, covers Yerba Buena Center for the Arts' triennial exhibition, Bay Area Now, which has been expanded to include notable architects and designers, including these two amazing studios.

From the article:

Helmed by married couple Kathryn Moll and Nicholas de Monchaux (also a professor of architecture and urban design at U.C. Berkeley and director of the Berkeley Center for New Media), Modem is a young practice that works on both ends of the scale of traditional architecture.

For Bay Area Now 8, Modem has produced a 22-by-8-foot map of the Bay Area that is composed of typewritten text; changing degrees of density in the words relate to various geological and climate hazards. The lines themselves have been culled from Craigslist-type internet posts—people seeking rides, or missed connections—that give a little glimpse of Bay Area life at the micro level.

There's a two-fold character to Nemestudio's work. It's a kind of a "pendulum," says Neyran Turan, Nemestudio partner and assistant professor of architecture at U.C. Berkeley, between mundane everyday practices and architectural details and larger questions of the environment and urbanism.

For Bay Area Now 8, Nemestudio is again tackling the issue of waste in a massive, triptych-like drawing representing a 19th century salon in their installation Our Junk, Their Ruin. In the piece, buildings and forms are made from e-waste and plastic garbage from the ocean.

Read the rest of the article here.