Mcdowellespinosa

Working from a storefront in Scottsville, VA and a brownstone in Brooklyn, NY, Seth McDowell and Rychiee Espinosa founded mcdowellespinosa in 2010 with attention to the transformation of waste, excess, and the ordinary into new spatial and material realities. These investigations are explored at diverse scales and formats from the city to the object. The partnership produces a hybrid entity that is stimulated by the tensions between east/west, north/south, female/male, biological/artistic, clean/dirty, and technical/conceptual. Authenticity does not study the rules governing the general recurrence of a periodic incident (the expected case) so much as study the games governing the special occurrence of an anomoly (the excepted case). Translating this statement to an architectural agenda, mcdowellespinosa pursues architecture as the exception to the general practice of “building.” Architecture is imagined as the moment when building becomes a manifestation of a particular person, culture or time and not merely the regurgitation of general, universal practices and principles. Our work challenges general assumptions of utility by fixating on the transformation of waste material, excessive routines, and ubiquitous forms. The objective is to create and celebrate the anomaly—that strange thing that returns no response from Google. mcdowellespinosa has been recognized nationally and internationally by the Architectural League of New York, the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, Museum of Modern Art in NYC, Pamphlet Architecture, the Hong Kong Institute of Architects, and the Chicago Architecture Foundation.