“Confluences evoke a context
where diverse worlds can influence one another.”
— Ailton Krenak, Ancestral Future

​

​

Confluences is an inquiry into opposition within an increasingly polarized context, investigating tension, coexistence, and negotiation without resolution. Working within design paradigms shaped by oppositions such as industry and nature, control and variability, the work approaches these tensions not as problems to overcome, but as sites of inquiry.

The process begins from a pre-existing condition: a branch found on Pratt’s campus, approached as a structure carrying its own logic. From this position, design shifts from projection to relation, unfolding through observation, testing, and continuous negotiation with the material’s capacities and limits.

Steel enters as a second materiality, introducing a contrasting logic of precision without overriding the branch’s irregularity. The structure emerges through their coexistence, with each decision responding to the branch’s anatomy rather than imposing a predetermined form.

What results is not a fixed solution, but a system grounded in relation, where balance is continuously negotiated and use unfolds through interaction. Confluences proposes a biocentric approach in which design participates in a broader network of forces, positioning nature as an active presence and design as a form of world-making.