Offramp 15 Stuff

As we fling around the term “object” within architectural discourse, questioning its relationship to other things, perhaps it’s time to critically step back. Take a step back and look at all the stuff we have accumulated. Stuff—the name we use to describe the indescribable, unspecific, imprecise—encompasses our overwhelming inability to consider things individually. However, stuff is not things. Stuff flattens things, it generalizes objects into a flat ontology and isn’t ashamed to admit it. Stuff is also versatile, and dimensional, in that it can collect miscellaneous entities across vast stretches of the universe in the simple use of any random adjective: Fun Stuff. Pink Stuff. That Stuff. Stuff is unmeasurable, invisible. It can be matter, energy, space, collections, aggregates. Stuff can be old, new, borrowed, or blue. Stuff is inclusive and diverse. Stuff is microscopic and stuff is bigger than the universe. Stuff has smoky boundaries, stuff is shapeless. Stuff is everything and nothing.

Editors Danny Wills, Claudia Wainer, Dylan Krueger, Ravi Chandar, Yara Feghali.