Devin Derr
dderr@ltu.eduDerr is currently enrolled in the masters of architecture program and will be receiving his degree in the summer of 2023. Derr has developed a keen interest in sustainable architecture and currently works at Michigan's most sustainable firm Architectural Resource, specializing in low carbon, passive house and Living building challenge designs.Having attended Lawrence Tech for his undergraduate education as well, Derr has had the chance to explore the connection of the built and natural environments for more than 4 years now. With his sustainable experience in the workplace and his ecologically focused studies, Derr hopes to contribute to expand current architectural practice to include more ecologically symbiotic design. To further this initiative, Derr will be attending the University of Michigan in the Fall of 2023 to obtain a master in Landscape Architecture.
TITLE
Great Lakes Nature Center
MajorArchitecture
DescriptionWhat if the buildings that we make were alive? Not metaphorically alive, but living breathing contributors to the ecosystems that host them. This project investigates not only how this might be possible, but also how it can fundamentally redefine the way we live our lives. The current housing market is just that, nothing more than the hollow exchange and gain of monetary values. We live in our homes which sit on a decimated ecological landscape and import the benefits of a healthy ecology from far away to sustain ourselves. We sit on top of the land and impose our transactional human constructions with no integration into the surrounding ecological context. This project has defined this mode of living as “inhabiting”. Contrary to inhabiting is the concept of dwelling, and to dwell is to feel at home in a space that maintains nature (both human and non-human), provides protection, freedom, and peace, and implies a general intent to remain.The concept of dwelling is larger than the architecture itself, and requires a complex set of relations between human dwellers and other living organisms and systems.
To explore the two primary interests a design investigation was conducted to prove that architecture can be composed of living biological material, and simultaneously act as a true dwelling for both human and non-human constituents. Spatiaculture (spay-sha-culture) was a term I coined to describe a both ancient and emerging architecture typology that utilizes trees and other living botanicals as a primary source of structure and inclosure. My investigation leverages this unique architectural practice by generating not just a Spatiacultre building, but a spatiaculture dwelling, that is in many ways self resilient, and community oriented. If you have any questions or thoughts you would like to share please reach out to me through my LTU email.
