Living imprint
One X Whole
What if the marks a brick accumulates became the beginning of its next life?
Living Imprint treats worn and discarded brick surfaces as a source of new architectural possibilities. Scans of cracks, chips, and erosion become relief patterns for modular masonry studies. Each unit carries a fragment of a larger surface, connecting the memory of an individual brick with the possibility of an ecological facade.
Damage and weathering become records to work with. Surface scans translate these traces into depth and texture, allowing a brick’s previous life to inform a new geometry.
A second life for brick
The search for a second life extends beyond the surface. Material experiments incorporate brick dust into bio-based casts, bringing fragments of discarded masonry into new objects.
These studies ask how material reuse and digital fabrication might work together. They are exploratory prototypes, opening questions about composition, durability, and future applications rather than claiming a finished sustainable building product.
2025
University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, Advanced Prototyping Supervised by Prof. Catie Newell
Parametric modeling, molding and casting, digital fabrication
Earlier Studies
Towards a vertical habitat
Building on the urban cliff hypothesis, the proposal imagines a facade whose pockets, ridges, and crevices offer places for biological attachment. The marks inherited from a weathered brick become an invitation to future growth.
The planted wall and hollow masonry studies illustrate this possible direction. Their ecological potential remains a question for further testing, including how geometry and material might support moisture, sediment, and living organisms over time.
All for one
A continuous relief is divided into masonry units, each holding a distinct fragment of the larger surface. Shared dimensions make assembly possible without making every piece identical. Between one and whole, the wall becomes a collective pattern whose character depends on the differences between its parts.
