Ruy Klein is an

experimental design

practice. We do projects

at the confluence of

architecture, nature, and

technology. We design

buildings, landscapes,

and machines.


↓

Tongues in Trees, 2021

a+u #646

July, 2024

Post-Digitality in Architecture

Guest edited by Toshiki Hirano and Toshikatsu Kiuchi


This issue of Architecture and Urbanism (a+u), features a survey of

SCI-Arc's EDGE programs, an interview with David Ruy about the future

of architectural education, and Ruy Klein's Apophenia project.

Other Places, 2022

Ruy Klein is directed by David Ruy and Karel Klein. Since 2000, Ruy

Klein has been focused on the changing nature of architecture relative

to three important historical events: the movement towards the

digitization and virtualization of everything possible, culminating now

with the AI revolution; the emergence of international finance and the

unanticipated effects of the giant pool of capital that flows through the

world; a global awareness of ecological peril and the growing

obsolescence of a modernist concept of nature. In short, our intuition

from the beginning has been that somewhere between the computer,

the bank, and the forest might be a new architecture. During these

years, we have seen the complete digitalization of how the architect

works. We have seen the erosion of established service-oriented

business models, but also (the still unappreciated) emergence of

strange new ways of financializing architecture. Though we have seen

some important research in the development of sustainable materials

and energy, nature oddly remains, for most, nothing more than that

thing we stare at through the windows of our buildings. Our projects,

essays, and design research have targeted disciplinary problems at

the confluence of these considerations and asks what it means to be

an architect in the twenty-first century.


We are currently investigating the possibilities (and dangers) of

generative AI and synthetic concepts of ecological design.

Bioprinter, 2013

David Ruy's work develops out of a single observation: what we take to be

reality is largely built out of representations—buildings, images, interfaces,

narratives. This insight has driven thirty years of design practice and

theoretical research, work sustained by an ongoing engagement with

emerging creative technologies. He has founded academic programs and

has lectured throughout Asia, Europe, and the Americas. His work has been

collected by prominent institutions and is frequently cited in studies of

contemporary design culture. Presently, he is writing and lecturing about

the ramifications of artificial intelligence and climate change for creative

practices and advises institutions and companies worldwide about

design innovation and cultural strategy. He is on the faculty at SCI-Arc in

Los Angeles, having previously held appointments at Columbia University,

Princeton University, Unversity Pennsylvania, and Pratt Institute.

 

david@ruyklein.com




Karel Klein is an architect, artist, and educator. Investigating craft,

precision, and the evolution of creative sensibilities in the digital age, Karel

foregrounds the persistence of the human imagination in contemporary

culture. She is currently researching correspondences between Surrealism

and Generative AI, occupying a zone common to both architecture and the

fine arts. She received her M Arch degree from Columbia University and

also holds a BS degree in civil engineering from the University of Illinois

Urbana-Champaign. Karel teaches design studios at SCI-Arc.


karel@ruyklein.com