The Periodic Table has been called “nature’s Rosetta Stone,” “the chemist’s map” and “probably the most compact and meaningful compilation of knowledge yet devised.” If the time-honored periodic table hanging in science classrooms around the world enables prediction of properties and relationships between material elements, how might a new aperiodic table, updated and borne from the history-defying conditions of the Anthropocene, assist a global community struggling to navigate the material, ecological, and social justice issues of an accelerating climate crisis?

The Aperiodic Table offers a methodology for transdisciplinary research and material trajectories across space and time. It is a roadmap for the new, strange, uncontained and often harmful material formations, unique to this geological epoch of human-accelerated change.

spillage, seepage, efflorescence

Cassandra Fraser, Professor, Chemistry, Biomedical Engineering,
School of Architecture, tranSci Lab Director

Berenika Boberska, Feral Office, Mitchell Visiting Professor,
School of the Art Institute of Chicago, tranSci Lab Artist/Architect

Ash Duhrkoop, PhD Candidate, Art History,
2022-23 tranSci Lab Graduate Resident

Hugo Kamya, Professor, Simmons University,
Associate Director, Center for Innovation in Clinical Social Work,
tranSci Uganda research trip host and collaborator

Julia MacNelly, MLA Candidate, Landscape Architecture,
School of Architecture

Rosana Rubio Hernández, Center for Historic Studies of
Public Works and City Planning, Madrid, Spain

Matthew Seibert, Landscape Metrics, Assistant Professor,
Landscape Architecture, School of Architecture

Ishani Saraf, Postdoctoral Research Associate and Lecturer,
Art & Sciences Engagements Program

Theodore Teichman, MLA 2023, School of Architecture,
2022-23 tranSci Lab Graduate Resident

Devin Zuckerman, PhD Candidate, Religious Studies,
tranSci Lab Associate Director of Programs, 2021-23

Research and Design Assistants

Hitisha Kalolia, MArch’19, Woodbury University, Jetta Lin, MArch’24, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Zahid Ahmed Shariff, MArch’24, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Agnes To, MLA Candidate, Landscape Architecture, UVA

Sponsors

School of Architecture Climate Futures Design Research Challenge Grant

Environmental Resilience Institute Spark Grant

Arts & Sciences Page Babour Workshop Grant