Undoing the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ): The Agency of Architectural Intelligence

This paper expounds on the “Undoing the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ): The Agency of Architectural Intelligence” portmanteau installed at the Milwaukee Art Museum as part of the 2018 Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) Fall Conference “Play with the Rules” in Milwaukee, MI. It examines how the portmanteau activates new ways of understanding, interpreting, and projecting the dynamically changing Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). The paper specifically discusses the meaning of “architectural intelligence” in the context of how the architectural discipline currently defines it and the role of architects for these kinds of research and practice. Based on this definition, the paper examines how the portmanteau’s three main components: DMZ’s past primary materials, current interpretive research on the DMZ, playful interactive future projections of the DMZ combined start to formulate thought-provoking interrogations that question conventional perceptions and habitual thinking on the DMZ and nation-state borders and persisting state imaginaries.

Volume Editors
Jasmine Benyamin, Kyle Reynolds, Mo Zell, Nikole Bouchard & Whitney Moon

ISBN
978-1-944214-28-9