Lydia Moog proposes to investigate different interpretations of “airiness” in structures. She will evaluate the notion of what it means for a structure to be lightweight, materially efficient, and sustainable by exploring a range of environments from rural to urban as well as current innovations and past methods through a set of case studies.
Lydia Moog
University of California, Berkeley
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Horse Island Research Station by Gray Organschi Architecture and Yale School of Architecture. © Lydia Moog.
Jury
Sigrid Adriaenssens
Alessandro Beghini (Chair)
Janet Echelman
Carlos Gonzalez
Jenny Sabin
Lydia Moog’s research on airiness in design has the potential to broaden the way we think about sustainability. By exploring how lightweight structural solutions relate to local climate, materials, and building practices, she will shed a light on the complex interrelationships between the life of a structure and local communities.
Alessandro Beghini, Juror (Chair)
When considering air, what springs to mind? Do you visualize sound, pressure, movement, light, form? Perhaps you conjure up the sensation of foam condensing on your tongue. Or do you perceive air as an interaction, a conversation with the materials with which it interacts, sometimes delicately, sometimes quite forcefully. The question of how we accommodate or manage air is pertinent in some regions more than others, but as air globally holds extreme temperatures, powerful forces, dense accumulations of particles, high concentrations of greenhouse gases, engineers in urban areas who may not have thought as much about appeasing air, are coming to find themselves interrogating this question. The challenges faced by structural engineers mirror those that confront a growing city, which are exacerbated by climate change. Structural engineering in cities is intertwined with the peripheries of cities as well as rural regions through the supply chain of materials and the communities and people to which the construction industry is tied.
The collection of sites I propose to visit each represent different ways of reading air and the impressive ways, visible and invisible, in which air forms structures. Each site considers air as a factor for design, whether to inflate, regulate temperature, form sound, or measure material efficiency. My interpretation of “airiness” is as an indicator for the environmental impact of the construction industry, and I propose to investigate both optimized, lightweight, materially “airy” structures and structures that may, at first glance, appear to be anything but airy, whose impact on their environment may be with a light touch.
Luum Temple in Tulum, Mexico, designed by CO-LAB Design Office. © Pakal Egger and Tonatiuh Egger.
Luum Temple in Tulum, Mexico, designed by CO-LAB Design Office. © César Béjar Studio.
The critical questions Lydia asks reveal an understanding that structures do not exist in isolation, but are interconnected with the people, spaces and networks within which the built environment exists.
Matthew DeJong, Associate Professor University of California Berkeley Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering
The construction of lightweight, optimized structures can be intertwined in global supply chains that can complicate the nature of their sustainability objectives. To properly characterize these structures, therefore, a full analysis of the structures needs to be performed that considers the complex life of these structures and the communities that they interact with prior to achieving their finished structural form. By studying structures in isolation, the full scope of their impact can be missed, and their role in cities, in peripheries, and in rural regions overlooked. Missing this aspect of structural engineering, without careful consideration of the materials, and manufacturing of construction, is a lost opportunity. To comprehensively investigate structures that strive for sustainability, I will explore a series of case studies in a range of environments from rural to urban, that reflect current innovations and past methods.
My proposal is to begin by visiting a select set of start-ups in the California Bay Area that are investigating new materials and construction methods that aim to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the construction industry, and, in doing so, offer a sustainable alternative to conventional building materials. When visiting these sites, I am curious to explore how each start-up is defining sustainability and what methods they are using.
Al-Hussein Mosque, Cairo, 2000. © SL Rasch GmbH.
Al-Hussein Mosque, Cairo, 2000. © SL Rasch GmbH.
Seven months later, I plan to visit the start-ups again, this time with a new set of questions shaped by my experiences. In doing so, I hope to get two snapshots of the current explorations into materials and methods for sustainable construction.
In the intermediary time, I propose to visit a set of case studies, each of which tackles a design challenge associated with air in an innovative, sustainable way. I am curious to investigate the process used to design these structures, to experience the environment that they create, and to contextualize the structures in the environments within which they reside.
With each case study, I will explore the following questions:
The SOM Foundation Structural Engineering Fellowship offers a unique opportunity to observe and experience firsthand how structures are shaped by the communities and spaces they inhabit.
Lydia Moog
Lydia Moog
University of California, Berkeley
grew up in San Francisco, California, where she first experimented with designing structures as a student of Goranka Poljak-Hoy. Moog left San Francisco to pursue a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering at Brown University. Throughout her undergraduate studies, Moog explored form and materiality in textiles, glass, metal, and wood. After graduating from Brown, Moog worked as a structural engineer for Odeh Engineers, Inc. in Providence, Rhode Island, where she had the unique opportunity of collaborating on projects ranging from kinetic performing arts spaces to experimental structures designed by architecture students. Moog recently graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a Master of Science in Structural Engineering, Mechanics, and Materials. Looking forward, Moog is interested in applications for structural engineering that both consider and challenge the intertwined regional and global impacts of how space is constructed.
