Contingent Practices

Perry Kulper and Nat Chard work with conditions of uncertainty, developing a contingent architecture that provokes and absorbs the unforeseen as well as the more predictable relationships into which architecture can enter. In mainstream practice and research there is an emphasis on achieving a certain outcome. Those who wish to have a building made make a prediction - what they want to take place - while the architect attempts to make that prediction come true. In Kulper and Chard’s work the outcome is unknown- they have developed their own working and research practices to take this into account. In different ways, they both use the act of making drawings as a way of engaging with uncertain conditions and enrolling a range of incomplete relationships. By acting on these sorts of relations they are breaking new ground by taking up the unpredictable, a marginal area relative to the ordained territories claimed for architectural discussions. Without the need or desire for a single resolved project they work in parallel, Kulper in a basement in Ann Arbor, Michigan and Chard from his attic in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The work of one is contaminated by the arrival of a new drawing or reference from the other, while the reflection on the exchanged material comes from the other person’s position rather than confirming an agreed target. This condition is heighted by an unspoken policy of exchanging work with very little commentary so that any disturbance provided by these reflections is sincere and without contrivance. While Kulper and Chard have established rigor in their respective research methods, their collaboration disrupts the stability that such discipline provides. It is a collaboration that provides the sort of disturbances that bring a helpful and real uncertainty to the process of design. Proposing architecture for uncertain conditions touches many paradoxes and the work plays with paradox to nurture uncertainty - as another source of disturbance. The work also