Kelly Bair
Email Address: kbair@uic.eduCollege: Architecture and the Arts Department: Architecture
Title: Associate Professor of Architecture
Office: 310.346.7780 Phone: 310.346.7780
Participating in the Chancellor’s Undergraduate Research Awards program: Yes
Research Interest:
Our research philosophy hinges on an earnest belief that the dynamic forces that shape our physical environment are central influences to the design of our built environment. As designers, we give tactile form to the latent qualities of the matter that surrounds us. Our work employs physical forces {gravity, weight, pressure, temperature, and weather patterns} and urban dynamics {crowds, human interaction, built context} in an effort to elicit experiences that are as strange as they are familiar. Whether this process results in projects that take on forms and features reminiscent of the human body (figural objects) or adopt more elusive atmospheric qualities (difficult to define yet utterly visceral in their material effects) we strive to design architectural spaces that provoke human interaction and pique the curiosity of the collective mass.
Our design process is driven both by the conceptualization of ideas and the making of objects & spaces that act as accomplice to those ideas. Rooted in this mode of production is the mating of friendly robots {emmerging digital fabrication technologies} with our own two hands in an effort to achieve a symbiotic relationship between the technical precision of machines and the nuance of craft. Minimum time commitment in hours per week: 20 Qualifications of a Student:
Min. GPA: 3.25
Preferred Major: Architecture/Design & The Arts
Year in College: 2+
Architecture/Design Experience: (physical/digital model building, Adobe Suite and 3d modeling skills such as Rhino preferred) Brief Summary of what is expected from the student:
Student is expected to conduct guided research, format research findings in a the form of quality digital graphics (drawings and diagrams in Adobe Suite Programs), and develop that research in the form of design proposals (drawings and models).
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