Director | The Plethora Project
Jose Sanchez is an Architect, Game Designer, and Theorist based in Detroit, Michigan. He is the director of the Plethora Project (www.plethora-project.com ), a research studio investing in the future of the propagation of architectural design knowledge. He is the creator of the video games Block’hood and Common’hood, digital social platforms that aid the authoring of architectural and ecological thinking to non-expert audiences. He is the author of the book “Architecture for the Commons: Participatory Systems in the Age of Platforms” published by Routledge in 2020 and the co-creator of Bloom, a crowdsourced interactive installation which was the winner of the Wonder Series hosted by the City of London for the 2012 Olympics. He has taught in renowned institutions in the United States and in Europe, including the Architectural Association in London, The Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London, at the University of Southern California. He is currently at the University of Michigan, where he is an Associate Professor at the Taubman College School of Architecture. His research “Architecture for the Commons” designs and interrogates social media platforms as tools with the potential to author architectural content in the public domain.
Courses
Expanded Futures: Special Focus Session
Go behind the scenes to discover the science, techniques and software used to create both usable data sets for architects and exploratory design platforms. This panel will uncover the actual processes used to pull weather data and climate analysis to influence design decision-making as well as explore the game creation process. It will explore the ways designers are responding to the challenge of potential climate catastrophe and how resilient principles can help avert a dangerous future.
Course expires 1/25/2026