This unit is framed through a precise technical challenge, that of pyro-seismic design. Students were challenged to address novel structural and constructional concerns, those created by the twin risk of earthquake and fire. These concerns were also framed through specific representational techniques. Students were asked to research and design through the use of physical and digital testing of seismic performance. 

This focus were used to foreground a particular architectural and environmental concern; the role that environmental risks play in shaping our cities and buildings. The students began by studying the pyro-seismic logic of traditional Japanese architecture, typified by buildings that dance like snakes, and are symbolically protected by water-spewing, dragon-headed carp. It concluded by asking them to make building proposals for contemporary Tokyo with a tectonic language that expresses the dynamism of two things we usually take as stable; our buildings and the earth.