SPACES LANDSCAPES PROTOTYPES SIMULATION GEOMETRY ENVIRONMENTS ECOLOGIES
2018 March

Dana speaks at the CMUThink Pittsburgh event themed around Greening the Urban Environment. This Alumni Association University event introduces CMU’s innovative research and technology that could lead to healthier cities.

2018 March

Epiphyte Lab has been recognized as the Next Progressive design practice by ARCHITECT, The Journal of American Institute of Architects. Learn more about Epiphyte Lab’s design work in the interview with Dana.

2018 March

Dana presents Senyai: Vaulted Acoustics project at the Building Behaviors panel, 106th Annual Meeting ACSA, Denver, CO.

BREAD BONDAGE: Experiments in Gradient Casting and Voluptuousness

| Pittsburgh, PA | Summer 2016 |

| Design Research Project | Object |

Bread Bondage is a design experiment that explores relationships between architecture and food and unpacks the processes related to material behavior, state transformation, tactility of form, the grotesque and the pleasure of consumption. The study explores an indeterminate set of net‐casting procedures that are typically related to the formation of architectural objects but, through the use of a very atypical material, alive with yeast and manipulatable by heat and practices of kneading, expands the results into the realm of sensorial pleasure and literal human consumption. In the dough net casting process, the multiple ingredients are used to increase the surface area of the crust and voluptuous tactility of the object. ‘Bread Bondage’ attempts to visualize sets of overlaid physical and state‐change behaviors while exploring potential for tactile and spatial architectural effects: the dough is pushed by its own weight and expansive forces from the string net, slumping and folding over multiple waistlines, suspending the volume to allow for force based resolutions and application of heat. The objects in ‘Bread Bondage’ want to be teased, caressed and eaten in chunks, collectively or alone, leaving a trace of their past in the remaining carcasses, which develop identities of their own as remnants of the consumed.

The Secret Life of Buildings Symposium and Exhibition
The Secret Life of Buildings Competition
In collaboration with Ben Snell

| CONCEPT & LEAD: Dana Cupkova | ARTISTIC PRODUCTION: Ben Snell |