Interloper: Activating the Possible

Abstract

This article seeks to open a dialogue on encouraging creative possibility in architectural education, with particular focus on the architecture studio. Although discussed through the practice of design, I present experimental methods that are adaptable across creative and speculative disciplines. Rooted in the conceptual difference between possible and probable thinking as identified by philosophers Didier Debaise and Isabelle Stengers, this article positions the role of the architect as being interstitially located in multiple temporalities (as well as occupying the liminal space between the real and the imagined) in such a way that this difference between possible and probable is seen to be potentially critical to the future of the built environment. Focusing on non-linear time (investigated through temporal mapping), situating the imagined architecture in the dynamic conditions of site (site studies/development of architecture), and through the introduction of an interloper (chance/event), this article acts as a framework for examining potential methods for nurturing and sustaining possibility in the space of the architecture studio.