Winka Dubbeldam: Architecture and hybridity.

<p>What if buildings could free themselves – or be freed by their architects – of the stricture of type, of discrete identity, of typology? What might happen if, for example, a school and a house - schoolness and houseness – were hybridized? What if building and non-building, even, were wedded? Might this, perhaps, offer a way to negotiate, heal even, the nature-architecture divide?</p><p>This is not pompous and pretentious speculation, but the proposal of Winka Dubbeldam, founder-director of Archi-Tectonics and director and CEO of the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc), in her recent edited book, <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/M/bo246016348.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer"><strong>Monsters and Mutants:  Explorations in the Architecture-Nature Continuum</strong></a>, published by Park Books in 2025, and featuring essays by Winka, Justin Korhammer, Thom Mayne, Carlo Ratti and Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen. It is also the <em>modus operandi</em> of her and Justin Korhammer’s New York, Los Angles and Hangzhou practice, <a href="https://archi-tectonics.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Archi-Tectonics</a>. </p><p>Winka and I talk all this, and intriguing and inspiring it is. For new conditions, we probably need new typologies and a taxonomy agile enough to meet a swiftly tilting planet. </p><p>Here is Winka at <a href="https://archi-tectonics.com/team" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">work </a>and <a href="https://www.sciarc.edu/people/faculty/winka-dubbeldam" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">university</a>. The book is linked above. </p><p>If you want and can, please support the <em>A is for Architecture Podcast</em> by listening in and sharing it, or by either subscribing on <a href="https://patreon.com/aisforarchitecturepodcast?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Patreon </a>or making a gift via <a href="https://buymeacoffee.com/aisforarchitecture" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Buy Me a Coffee</a>. </p><p>+</p><p>Music credits: Bruno Gillick </p><p>Image credit: Hybrid Stadium &amp; Concert Hall, by SFAP. </p>