SYNTHIA

Project Synthia, by the Responsive Environments and Artifacts Lab (REAL) at Harvard, is a case study in emergent design methodology—an approach that treats collaboration as a dynamic system, where outcomes are not imposed but negotiated. Here, design is framed as an act of assembly, shaped by a multiplicity of voices rather than a singular vision. This exhibition reflects an evolving synthesis, mediated by the tensions and harmonies of interdisciplinary thought.

Synthia emerges from the intersections of geology, futures study, cognitive science, physics, art, design, architecture, history – each discipline contributing fragments to a larger, unresolved puzzle. The exhibition draws inspiration from radical experiments in design methodology, from Bruno Munari’s Da cosa nasce cosa (from one thing comes another) to the interdisciplinary ethos of Gyorgy Kepes, Chicago’s New Bauhaus, and MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS). Like these predecessors, it challenges the notion of authorship and control, embracing uncertainty as a generative force.

At its core, Project Synthia is a meditation on assembly—of ideas, artifacts, and histories. It traverses time and discipline, collapsing distinctions between past and future, human and machine, simulation and materiality. It is both an excavation and an invention, a recognition of the mess we have made, and a proposition for how we might make sense of it.

REAL Lab
Allen Sayegh
 Isa He
Kevin Tang
Ben Kazer
Gustavo Borges
Eric Rannestad

Contributors
Joelle M. Abi-Rached
Melissa Franklin
Youtian Duan
Amelia Gan
Sean Nakamura-Dolan
Melanie Louterbach
Cynthia Deng
Elif Erez
Justin Booz
Gem Barton
Jacob Walker
Brooke Chornyak
Samuel Adrian Massey
Marieke Van Damme, History Cambridge