Tiffany Xu
Harry der Boghosian Fellow for 2025–26
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
This lecture explores common elements across contemporary North American construction with a focus on material culture and tectonics in small scale residences. While vernacular craft houses, developer spec homes and experimental custom creations present vastly different appearances and ethics, they all contend with a construction culture that favors hollow panel construction and ever converging set of finish applications. “Under Construction” tracks such observations across three west coast projects and contemplates the potential of a more critical examination and expression of material and construction elements. This lecture is part of the Syracuse 2025-26 Boghosian Fellowship research work that asks how to position material realities of building in design discourse and as intellectual inquiry.
