In Spring 2024, in collaboration with a team of MIT students, Professors Caitlin Mueller and Sheila Kennedy launched ODDS & MODS, a multi-year cross disciplinary design and research initiative at the Department of Architecture at MIT that focuses on material circularity in architecture. Through projective design, critical thinking, computation, and machine learning (AI) ODDS & MODS seeks to create new architectural possibilities for the reuse of standardized materials (MODS) and geometrically irregular materials (ODDS), that until now have limited the scale up of circular approaches to design and construction.
The extraction, processing, and wasteful use of material resources in the built environment is central to the climate crisis. While decarbonization is often approached as a purely technical question, decision-making frameworks in the discipline of architecture are deeply rooted in histories of colonization, material culture and power. ODDS & MODS expands the project of architecture to include the design of the built object as well as the design of materials and processes that proceed it and follow it at end of life—opening a wider range of material choices, decarbonization practices and possible pathways to the decolonization of building materials.
Authors: Tim Cousin, Latifa Alkhayat, Natalie Pearl, Christopher B. Dewart, Caitlin Mueller
Year: 2023
Citation: Cousin, Tim, Latifa Alkhayat, Natalie Pearl, Christopher B. Dewart, and Caitlin Mueller. "Wild Wood Gridshells: Mixed-Reality Construction of Nonstandard Wood." Technology| Architecture+ Design 7, no. 2 (2023): 216-231.
Authors: Daniel Marshall, Caitlin Mueller, Brandon Clifford, & Sheila Kennedy
Year: 2020
Citation: Marshall, D., Mueller, C., Clifford, B. and Kennedy, S., 2020. Computational arrangement of demolition debris. Detritus, 11, pp.3-18.
Authors: Yijiang Huang, Latifa Alkhayat, Catherine De Wolf, Caitlin Mueller
Year: 2021
Citation: Huang, Y., Alkhayat, L., De Wolf, C. and Mueller, C., 2021. Algorithmic circular design with reused structural elements: method and tool. In Proceedings of the International fib Symposium on the Conceptual Design of Structures (Vol. 55, pp. 457-468). Fédération Internationale du Béton (fib).
Authors: T Cousin, D Marshall, N Pearl, L Alkhayat, C Mueller
Year: 2023
Citation: Cousin, T., D. Marshall, N. Pearl, L. Alkhayat, and C. Mueller. "Integrating irregular inventories: Accessible technologies to design and build with nonstandard materials in architecture." In Journal of Physics: Conference Series, vol. 2600, no. 19, p. 192004. IOP Publishing, 2023.
Authors: I Donovan, J Schnitzler, KJ Lee, P Wongsittikan, Y Liu, CT Mueller
Year: 2023
Citation: Donovan, I., J. Schnitzler, K. J. Lee, P. Wongsittikan, Y. Liu, and C. T. Mueller. "PixelFrame: A reconfigurable, precast, post-tensioned concrete structural system for a circular building economy." In Journal of Physics: Conference Series, vol. 2600, no. 19, p. 192007. IOP Publishing, 2023.
Authors: Felix Amtsberg, Yijiang Huang, Daniel J.M. Marshall, Kevin Moreno Gata, Caitlin Mueller
Year: 2020
Citation: Amtsberg, F., Huang, Y., Marshall, D.J., Gata, K.M. and Mueller, C., 2020. Structural up-cycling: matching digital and natural geometry. Advances in Architectural Geometry.
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