co/ev labs

a habitat for co-evolution // studio ponitz

book

evolution

The institution’s objective is to create a future in which humans evolve into leisurely lifestyles focused around creativity and learning, free from the burden of labor. It will focus on acclimating humans to the cohabitation with machines by presenting different environments for inter-species  interaction. The building will instil creativity by constantly varying the program location throughout the space, and by changing sectional connections between rooms. This will prepare the human species for a life of active leisure, focused on the creativity that makes us uniquely human.

lifts

Each day, the robots start on the bottom factory floor and then are lifted into the simulation rooms above. The lifts allow for design and maintenance of the machines in spaces that are only visually connected to the public. But their main purpose is to randomly distribute programming throughout the building on each day, which disrupts the monotony that residents might fear in a future without labor.

Wherever the lifts end for the day also creates sectional linkages that both change the spacial make up of the simulation rooms, but also the circulation paths through the building. This changes how residents move through the building each day, and starts to lay the groundwork for a more creative population, as it forces constant critical thinking.

display kitchen

The space helps humans get used to a future of interfacing with robots for all services, as well as showcasing the skill the machines can poses to make life easier.

demonstration theater

The theater serves as both a space for showcasing new and interesting ways that the residents are working with the machines, and allows for public interaction with the demonstrations, if the lift is linking the seating area to the stage

interspecies pool

The combination of indoor and outdoor water would be a place of recreation for humans, and clinical testing for machines. It would help to normalize the idea that robots will not solely be on land like humans have already started to accept, but rather interact with humans in a variety of environments.

rooftop farm

The outdoor roof  will have human specific areas of leisure, as well as a fully functioning urban farm maintained by machines. This displays another facet of the wide range of functions that the machines can perform, but also normalizes machines in an exterior environment, helping humans accept that they are not confined to climate-controlled interior spaces.