Sister Labs
The HiLo Lab (est. 2017) and The LoDo Lab (est. 2020) are interdisciplinary research arms located at The University of British Columbia and University of Colorado, Denver respectively. The labs were established to build rich and robust relationships with the faculty, staff, and students of each institution, and to create an interrelated platform for doing work between HouMinn and the two host institutions.
The UBC SALA HiLo Lab is an academic research lab working at the intersection of materials research, ecology, and the use of novel technologies in architectural applications. The lab’s mission centres on three interrelated ideas –the use of second stream materials in construction, building greater access to digital design and fabrication processes, and the design and application of energy efficient methods for construction that eliminate waste. More precisely, we are driven to generate sophisticated yet widely accessible tool sets and strategies for efficiently and sustainably building using low-impact materials and techniques. It is no longer sufficient for fabrication methods to simply address predetermined formal and financial logics.
The UCD CAP LoDo Lab was established to challenge traditional approaches to design and authorship. We are an open collaborative platform and purposefully cross-disciplinary lab that actively mingles architecture, design, urbanism, biology, and ecology in the work we pursue. We believe the notions that technology embodies inherently anti-natural principles, or is a domain squarely under the control of human operations, are both inaccurate and dangerous presumptions that limit the full potential of technology as a creative force that can benefit us as well as the planet. We are committed to engage and mine the relationships between our natural and built environments. Our lab is strategically located at the nexus of materials, technology, biology, and design.
HiLo, LoDo, and HouMinn operate as centres of collaboration. For architecture to maintain any relevance in the future it must evolve. The relationships between design production and fabrication, ethical use of material and empathetic treatment of our environment, and the spirit of collaboration, open access, and inclusivity must be as valued as the abstract manipulation of form and space.
