Clouds Architecture Office has produced a number of built and speculative projects distilled from research and analysis that explores the intersection between conceptual and experiential approaches to the built environment. Their work includes the publication of ‘Third Sphere,’ an article describing a suspended city based on the principle of the space elevator (Kerb Journal, 2012) and ‘Comet Runner‘ which envisioned harnessing a comet for interplanetary exploration (Dezeen, 2015). In 2014, they were nominated for the Iakov Chernikhov Prize, and in 2015 Clouds AO received the American Institute of Architects New York Chapter Honor Award, and First Prize in NASA’s Centennial Challenges: 3-D Printed Habitat for Mars.
Architecture has become a discipline obsessed with form making. Our explorations focus on the potential of the immaterial. We are interested in the experiential qualities of architecture, ways in which form and material can elicit lasting emotional or cognitive revelation. To achieve such an architecture requires careful attention to the unique parameters of each project. Research and analysis are distilled, with relevant facts materialized. Our goal is to create conditions that allow for a resonant experience by the synthesis of ideas through design.