Contingent Practices

Perry Kulper and Nat Chard work with conditions of uncertainty, developing a contingent architecture that provokes and absorbs the unforeseen as well as the more predictable relationships into which architecture can enter. In mainstream practice and research there is an emphasis on achieving a certain outcome. Those who wish to have a building made make a prediction - what they want to take place - while the architect attempts to make that prediction come true. In Kulper and Chard-s work the outcome is unknown- they have developed their own working and research practices to take this into account. In different ways, they both use the act of making drawings as a way of engaging with uncertain conditions and enrolling a range of incomplete relationships. By acting on these sorts of relations they are breaking new ground by taking up the unpredictable, a marginal area relative to the ordained territories claimed for architectural discussions. Without the need or desire for a single resolv