Zach Bundy

Encyclopedia Zach Bundy

I advocate for architectural engagement which utilizes the rigor of architectural practice to address the social consequences of tectonics.




This portfolio of my work, completed during my time at Columbia GSAPP, is presented in the format of a visual encyclopedia; it features an intense variety of illustrations, each of which rigorously shows an architectural solution for the endless list of factors that must be considered during design. These factors are recognized and resolved through an architect's ever-expanding encyclopedic knowledge of all things related to their project. Furthermore, the architect resolves all of these factors in the projects themselves, not in valorizing statements with oversimplified narratives.




To design in good faith means to design something with the belief that it will be built and that it will have an impact on the world around it. Without abstraction or vagueness, one must address the brief and then identify the thousands of sub-problems that arise afterward. For example, in Can A Tenement Be Civil? "civility" must be defined, tenements must be researched, and then an architect addresses civility through very concrete methods. The question of civility becomes a question not just of shared space, but of plumbing chases, modular construction, light, air, security, circulation, economy, and so forth. The original question, a single narrative, ends with hundreds. A designer with good faith will bend those hundreds of narratives in favor of the brief, rather than ignore them, consider them as tedious, or as distractions.




No detail is too small.




Although none of these projects will be built, each design carries with it the earnestness to be accomplished in the real world and to earnestly address the real-world issues within each brief.