Competition / A I R / Center for American Architecture and Design at the University of Texas at Austin

This is a call for Works of art and design that are also devices for manifesting, registering, materializing, manipulating, or visualizing the quality, movement, properties, or “spirit” of air in, around, and through buildings. 

Air: the mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide that serves all forms of terrestrial life; that carries a million other compounds and particles; that we feel on our skins and breathe and smell; that vibrates with sound; that carries birds and planes; that foams water, feeds fires, and fills tires; that moves curtains and removes roofs; that presses in on everything without our noticing. Air invisible, essential, shapeless, shaped: how might we see you? Air, brother of Space, how might we design with you in mind? 

The works selected will be exhibited as part of a symposium (called A I R, set for October 4, 2018), that will bring designers, writers, scientists, engineers, and artists together to explore the theme of air beyond conventional terms (e.g, climate, HVAC, pollution…). 

The Work should be a physical object that brings the beholder’s attention to the nature and quality of the air in the immediate environment, defined for the purposes of the Competition as: inside or near West Mall Building and Battle, Sutton, and Goldsmith Halls of the campus of The University of Texas at Austin. Works that also quantify in some way will be preferred. Works that are shippable and technically and economically feasible will also be preferred. Those that are not, and are still of high interest, may be chosen for display and publication as representations.