Graduate Student Collin Caywood’s Thesis “Body Double” showcase in UNC Charlotte's CriticalMASS Event

Last month, graduate student Collin Caywood participated in UNC Charlotte's CriticalMASS event, where he showcased his thesis project, Body Double. CriticalMASS gathers top master's thesis projects from across the United States, inviting selected students to present their work to a distinguished critic, faculty panel, and students during a day-long event.

Collin's work looks toward the American countryside to develop architectural frameworks around the collapse of contextual specificity, arguing that contemporary rurality no longer exists as a stable geographic or cultural form. These spaces are no longer accessed through direct experience but rather through what Collin calls interface layers-fragments of user-generated online media that project individualized perceptions of place, layering atop one another to form a totalizing picture filled with half-truths and narrative gaps. His work asks how architects can design for place in an era of flatness, where all representations hold equal weight and every individual becomes a participant in defining collective perceptions.