2020.11 Version Control
Version Control was built amid Covid-19 as a response to the issues presented by the transition to the virtual classroom. In design, virtual studios lacked the casual collaboration and off-hand comments that being in the same creative space tends to initiate. In a studio environment, when you get stuck on a design problem, you ask a friend for their opinion, or sometimes, a stranger offers an unsolicited view as they pass your desk. These kinds of interactions can change the trajectory of one's design process. What if there was a place you could upload your unfinished work or abandoned concepts to receive feedback or criticism from both friends and strangers? What if people could build from each other's ideas, and the different branches of thought were tracked and archived by the platform? What if designers embraced open-source culture as a way to develop ideas and embrace collaborative thinking more quickly? Version Control was conceived as a speculative solution to virtually emulating the complexities of thought circulation in a physical studio environment.
The exhibition at GSD Kirkland Gallery features an exclusive video that communicates and represents Version Control's recent outcomes. In a unique visual format, the commissioned video narrates the archive of the work collected in 2020 as a response to the project's proposal. In addition to the archive of works, the creators of Version Control identified trends among the works and tied it back into architectural history and design pedagogy, particularly looking at the history of "unfinishedness" in architecture and the history of open-source culture in other fields.
Producers: Emily Majors & Davide Zhang
Contributors: Alejandra Valdovinos, Austin Madrigale, Gabe Colombo, Clara He, Rebecca Romero, Hans Steffes, Elsa Hoover, Jeannelle Fernandez, Ben Schoenekase, Ben Creech, Aaron Sheffield, Nolan Summerhill, Pietro Mendonca, Paul McCoy, Alexandra Sanyal, Seb Fathi, Collin Stone, Eric Anderson, Veronica Rosado Perez, Thomas Huang, John Sarkis, Ayman Mortada, Phoebe Rhinehart, Yiou Wang, Signe Ferguson, Jonah Bobo, & Jack Wathieu
Special Thanks: Alejandra Valdovinos & Signe Ferguson
Emily Majors is an aspiring architect and designer from Beaumont, TX. In 2019, she received her Bachelor of Science in Environmental Design from Texas A&M University in College Station, TX. Currently, she is a M.Arch I class of 2023 candidate at the Harvard GSD. Although her foundations are in architecture, her interests and experiences dip into several facets of the design world including fashion, publication, art, film, and performance. Emily is interested in pursuing an interdisciplinary career motivated by the ambition to improve equity in design pedagogy and practice. In her spare time, Emily enjoys knitting, painting, and performance art as both a spectator and a participant.
Davide Zhang is a current MArch I class of 2023 candidate at the GSD. Growing up in Italy and China, Davide is interested in the intersection between technology and design and seeks to examine them through critical design thinking and user-driven methodologies. To continue honing those skills, Davide has been delving into architectural design and user experience design, two fields he thinks best embody critical design and user-driven frameworks. Davide received his Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science with a concentration in Art History from Columbia University in New York. His experiences include augmented reality (AR) research at the Columbia Computer Graphics and User Interfaces Lab (CGUI), internship at Paddle8, and co-founding software company Polytope Labs. Outside of school, Davide likes to waste time watching tech Youtube videos and snowboarding casually.
