Earthen Rituals explores the intersection of artificial design prompts with traditional materials rooted in embodied human histories.

The installation design is facilitated through an artificial intelligence methodology, where traditional earthen construction textures and typologies are translated into code language to generate graphic textures. The textures are then 3D printed using an earth-fiber mix design that fuses construction excavation waste with agricultural by-products. 

At the center of the installation is a floor projection—a circular methodology of making and remaking—that echoes the ritualistic processes developed at the Natural Materials Lab at Columbia GSAPP.
Earthen Rituals demonstrates a radically circular, hands-on, and devotional approach to design, construction, operations, and afterlife. The installation uses zero glue and zero plastics. Instead, it utilizes raw, naturally-driven materials—earth, fiber, wood, bamboo—all of which sequester carbon through biogenic processes. The project ensures easy dry deconstruction for 100% recycling or reuse, using non-toxic and non-hazardous materials.

The ritualistic and ceremonial avenues created by this project highlight the need for spaces that incorporate fused approaches to the human hand, tools, and machines; radical approaches to raw materials that are messy, porous, and extremely variable; and devotional approaches that merge design with fundamental scientific rigor.

This project is currently on view at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, titled Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective, curated by Carlo Ratti.