2019 - PRESENT | DRAWING SERIES
An ongoing drawing series which seeks to document a global survey of architectural assembly and surface types including the typically banal, famously novel , non-western, and indigenous. Currently numbering at 300 assembly types.
Team: J. Roc Jih, David White, Danny Griffin
2022 - PRESENT | PROTOTYPES
What if stone could be transformed into highly insulative, resilient, sustainable, mono-material architectures that are both rooted in history and place, and deliver 21st century standards of performance? Many industries are moving towards mono-material products in order to build more sustainable and recyclable product life cycles. Construction remains a notable exception, contributing to 40% of carbon emissions and 30% of all solid waste. At the same time, stone has recently become available in a variety of forms ranging from insulation to textiles, rebar, and plumbing. We are proposing to combine all of the functionality, structure, design and performance of architecture into a single material - basalt - and build a mono-material case study house in Iceland, a landscape made almost entirely from basalt. This is an architecture that would be fully composed of the surrounding earth, that melts back into that surrounding earth at the end of its lifespan, and that can be recycled infinitely.
This prototype stone system furthermore seeks to reduce the intensity of labor, skill, and carbon expenditure typically required of masonry. By using jammed gravel fill as structure, local low financial and carbon cost materials can be assembled without the need for precision stone cutting. Encased in protective basalt textile membranes, the jammed assembly is protected from abrasion and weathering. The next generation of prototypes will include solid basalt rainscreens and facade systems in addition to the textile casings seen here.
These prototypes on display show several forms of stone: insulative foamed block, insulative felted mat, extruded and woven textile, and gravel structural fill, together fulfilling structural, moisture, and thermal performances of wall assemblies. The final case study house will further use cast basalt plumbing and slabs.
Supported by the MIT Professor Amar G. Bose Research Grant Program.
Exhibited at the Berggruen Cultural Center as part of the 2025 Venice Biennale
Research Leads: Skylar Tibbits, J. Roc Jih
Project Team: Emily Ezquerro, Avigail Gilad, Natalie Pearl, Nof Nathansohn, Oliver Moldow, Simon Lesina-Debiasi, Jared Laucks
2019 - PRESENT | OBJECT SERIES
An ongoing object series which experiments with construction systems, testing idealized surface and material types against normative modes of architectural assembly.
Team: J. Roc Jih, Inez Ow, Danny Griffin, Mara Jovanovic
CHAIN LINK | TRICYLINDER
WOOD FRAME | TRICYLINDER
DEVELOPABLE SHEET | TRICYLINDER
RIVET | REAULEAUX TETRAHEDRON
STANDING SEAM | CONOID
TENSILE SURFACE | CONOID
KNOTTED DOWEL | CONOID
SHINGLE | SPHERICON
WOOD GRAIN | CYLINDER TO SQUARE
WOOD GRAIN | CARVED CUBES
2022 | Archive
An interactive archive documenting the often ephemeral relations within queer networks between sociality, academic discourse, and activism. Centered on the MIT queer community.
Visit the archive here.
Team: J. Roc Jih & Aidan Flynn (Co-Curators), Merve Akdogan (Installation), Dalma Fodesi & Jung In Seo (Web Design & Programming)