You Can Move Mountains

Spring 2023 GGR Recipient

Julia MacNelly (Architecture)

Using material collection and hybrid drawings, this project explores how bodies function within different types of building processes – from adobe construction, to compressed earth, to the monolithic concrete developments that are ubiquitous in Monterrey, Mexico. Like large-scale industrial practices, earth-based practices involve a process of taking from the land, but at a drastically different scale and size and impact. My study will consider the scalar relationship between embodiment, indigenous craftsmanship, and the commodification of land, asking how we, as designers, can apply the idea of scaling to use the details of a place as a method to understand the whole.