• NEWS / ABOUT
  • April 12, 2016
    AFJD installs They Grow Without Us, functional public seating grown from mushrooms at the UBC Bookstore, Lee Square. Please join us for the opening reception from 4:30 to 6:30pm. The installation will be up until July 1st, 2016. The project is part of the UBC Centennial Celebration.
  • August 16 2015
    AFJD installs Mycelium Mockup at Museum of Vancouver in CATALYZE exhibition organized by Artistic Directors Kate Armstrong Malcolm Levy ISEA2015, the annual conference of the International Society of Electronic Arts
  • August 5, 2015
    BC Hydroelectric Authority to fund Studio for Form and Energy at UBC founded by JD to investigate the intersections of energy and architecture
  • June 1, 2015
    JD presents at annual NSF SBIR conference in Atlanta, GA.
  • May 27, 2015
    JD participates in Sustainability Think Tank at State University of NY, New Paltz
  • May 25 2015
    JD gives keynote lecture in Oaxaca, Mexico, at First International Congress of Culture, Heritage, and Sustainability hosted by the Faculty of Architecture of the Universidad Autónoma Benito Juarez http://www.arq5m.uabjo.mx/at
  • May 5, 2015
    Watershed Materials, co-founded by JD, featured on the website of the National Science Foundation's SBIR program. The NSF funded Watershed Materials' research, both for a geopolymer replacement to Portland cement used in concrete masonry and for a new machine platform to produce low (or zero) cement masonry
  • April 9,2015
    JD invited to undergraduate final reviews at Dalhousie University Faculty of Architecture and Planning
  • April 16, 2015
    JD invited to thesis reviews at University of Toronto Master of Landscape Architecture
  • March 20, 2015
    JD presents at ACSA annual conference in Toronto
  • April 20, 2015
    AFJD and MSA invited to show Pop Rocks in Micro-Trasformazioni 2.0 in Brescia, Italy a collateral event of the Triennale of Milan curated by Paolo Mestriner, focused on inbnovative practices defined by low-cost and high-results urban interventions.
  • April Feb 5, 2015
    JD invited to participate in symposium at Beit al Hikma (http://www.baitelhekma.nat.tn/) on earthen architecture in Tunis, Tunisia
  • Feb 10, 2015
    JD presents at international conference on rammed earth at the University of Western Australia. (http://www.ecm.uwa.edu.au/business/icrec2015)
  • Sept 30, 2015
    Watershed Materials LLC receives $740,000 Phase II Small Business Innovative Research in funding from the National Science Foundation for its development of next generation sustainable masonry materials. Links: http://watershedmaterials.com/blog/2014/9/30/watershed-materials-awarded-740000-from-the-national-science-foundation-to-develop-durable-green-masonry-building-materials-with-zero-cement
  • July 5, 2014
    AFJD commissioned by SEEDS and Campus and Community Planning to University of British Columbia to develop an architectural installation using advanced mushroom biocomposites masonry for campus
  • June 26, 2014
    JD presents on the future of masonry at SPUR (San Francisco Planning and Urban Research) with Brent Constantz, the founder of Blue Planet http://www.spur.org/
  • April 1, 2014
    Watershed Materials LLC receives a prestigious Architizer A+ award in the category of new materials link: http://watershedmaterials.com/blog/2014/4/1/watershed-materials-is-a-winner-of-thebr-a-architizer-awards
  • I Hear You Say is an installation that translates sound waves into furniture. Made from post-consumer recycled EPS with a hard coating, the piece is a large-scale visualization of the word “Ah” that functions as site-specific seating on the terrace of the Peter Wall Institute. Located on the terrace at the Peter Wall Institute and open to the public. The Institute invites visitors to recline on the installation and converse while contemplating English Bay and the Coast Mountains beyond.
  • Pop Rocks, an architectural installation commissioned by the City of Vancouver transformed a block of Robson Street in downtown Vancouver from August 15 until October 1, 2012. Pop Rocks is a radically experimental temporary design that borrows post-industrial waste on its way to be recycled.
  • AFJ Feedback Series, Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, Nov 6, 2012
  • AFJ Western Front, Vancouver, September 25, 2012
  • AFJ Accountability Technologies panel at Ars Electronica curated by Dietmar Offenhuber & Katja Schechtner, Sept 1, 2012
  • AFJ La Lucha Sin Fin: On Contemporary Charismatics and its Political Technologies, forthcoming book publication, Jan van Eyck, October 2012
  • AFJD Pop Rocks opens in Vancouver August 15 through Sept 3
  • *Latent Stare* group exhibition curated by David Bennewith, July 8 through Sept 30.
  • JD Sustainability at a Distance: lessons learned from the developing world presentation at Sustainable Futures: Architecture and Urbanism in the Global South, in Kampala, Uganda, June 30
  • JD Architecture beyond borders: provisional lessons learned from the developing world presentation at ACSA Barcelona, June 22
  • JD Appointed Peter Wall Institute Early Career Scholar, April 15.
  • AFJ Data Is Political: Art, Design & the Politics of Information conference at KHiB (National Arts Academy) in Bergen, Norway, March 15
  • JD Form & Energy lecture series established at UBC, ongoing
  • JD Watershed Block awarded first contract for earth masonry units in Napa, California
  • JD Low Quality High Volume: Research Operations in Earth Economy lecture at Museum of Vancouver, March 18
  • JD SALA Works exhibition at OR Gallery, Vancouver Feb 25-March 15
  • AFJ Open Source Culture and Learning Cultures: Who Leads Whom? Panel discussion at ELIA, European League of Institutes of Arts, December 9, 2011
  • AFJ Appointed associate professor starting at Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver, July 1, 2012

PROJECTS

They Grow Without Us is a public furniture installation grown from mushrooms.

ABOUT

AFJD is the design studio of Amber Frid-Jimenez and Joe Dahmen. The studio is positioned at the intersection of architecture and information design. Our transdisciplinary approach engages advanced technology to create conceptually rigorous virtual and environmentally sustainable built environments. Our practice is eclectic and multidimensional, which reflects the changing culture of design and technology. We invent new processes and create social and political situations around the design of architecture, information design, and social media.

We have been working together for fifteen years. Much of that time we have been in Boston, where we stayed after finishing degrees at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2012, we relocated to Vancouver and travel back and forth to Norway and the Netherlands for research and projects.


Photo credit: David Niddrie

Amber Frid-Jimenez is an artist and designer who works at the intersection of art, design and technology. She has taught design studios and seminars at the Rhode Island School of Design, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Visual Arts Program, at the National Arts Academy (KHiB) in Bergen, Norway and most recently, Emily Carr University, Vancouver, where she is Canada Research Chair in art and design technology. She holds a Masters in Media Arts and Sciences from the MIT Media Lab where she studied with John Maeda.

Joe Dahmen trained as an architect at MIT and is an expert on sustainable building technology. He is an Assistant Professor of Design and Sustainability Integration at the University of British Columbia School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, where he teaches design studios and building technology courses. He is also a Faculty Associate of the Peter Wall Institute. He has an Master of Architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he worked with Yung Ho Chang and 2008 MacArthur Fellow John Ochsendorf.