Lecture Series: Jose Sanchez, Plethora-Project, U. Michigan | Platform Realism

Platform Realism:



Common'hood is an architecture modeling and simulation game mediated by scarcity and social struggle. The game foregrounds labor and inequality as a setting for community organization, self-sufficiency and the production of self-provided architecture.



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Jose Sanchez is an Architect, Game Designer, and Theorist based in Detroit, Michigan. He is the director of the Plethora Project (www.plethora-project.com ), a research studio investing in the future of the propagation of architectural design knowledge. He is the creator of the video games Block’hood and Common’hood, digital social platforms that aid the authoring of architectural and ecological thinking to non-expert audiences. He is the author of the book “Architecture for the Commons: Participatory Systems in the Age of Platforms” published by Routledge in 2020 and the co-creator of Bloom, a crowdsourced interactive installation which was the winner of the Wonder Series hosted by the City of London for the 2012 Olympics. He has taught in renowned institutions in the United States and in Europe, including the Architectural Association in London, The Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London, at the University of Southern California. He is currently at the University of Michigan, where he is an Associate Professor at the Taubman College School of Architecture. His research “Architecture for the Commons” designs and interrogates social media platforms as tools with the potential to author architectural content in the public domain.



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The UTSOA Spring 2021 Lecture Series will be presented digitally through Zoom and will be live-streamed on the Texas Architecture YouTube channel. All lectures will take place at 12:30 PM unless noted otherwise.