O + I

Object:

Noun /äbjekt/

1. a material thing that can be seen and touched.

Object and Ideograms, is a design workshop with an obsession of materiality and its meaning to us in various global contexts. Simply put - objects and ideograms, materials and applications, or things and ideas. But we don’t just stop after ideation and research. Our agenda as a design workshop, somewhere between atelier and factory, is to take an idea and explore it through means of making so that it emerges into the world as application. As design technologists we invent our own materials, fabrication processes, and systems to tackle the challenges of our past, present, and future. This rigorous design process applies to both the material and immaterial, as our projects range from the tangible built environment to intangible data and graphic.

Alex Schofied

Native Oakland-based designer Alex Schofield focuses on emerging technologies, material research, and their implications within the built environment. He completed his M.Arch at University of California, Berkeley, where he received the Mario Ciampi Art in Architecture Award for his parafictional exploration in fabrication, agency, and form of an architecture built from coffee grounds. Previously, Alex Schofield has worked as a Researcher at UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design in development of the printFARM (Print Facility for Architecture, Research, and Materials) and various 3D printed material methods and materials. He has worked for innovative materials and technology based design firm Emerging Objects as well as the environmentally focused Hyphae Design Laboratory. He has since completed residencies at both Autodesk Pier 9 and Workshop Residence in San Francisco, and has lectured and exhibited his work abroad. Alex also teaches at California College of the Arts, where he is an adjunct professor of Architecture and collaborator with the Architectural Ecologies Lab.

Alex is the director of the design workshop, Objects and Ideograms, where he continues rethinking spatial making with an emphasis on materiality. He leverages his unique education and experiences to further develop both design, fabrication, and material research in efforts towards a smarter, more ecologically conscious, built environment. Through research developed at O+I, Alex collaborates with the Architectural Ecologies Lab in the prototype, development, and recent launch of 3D printed Calcium Carbonate modules investigating material and spatial properties in service of marine ecology.