MARC FORNES, registered and practicing Architect DPLG, leads THEVERYMANY, a New York-based studio specializing in large-scale, site-specific structures that unify skin, support, form, and experience into a single system. Over the last ten years, Marc has designed and built a number of organic, thin-shell constructions that push the limits of form, structure, and space. This body of work is situated between the fields of art and architecture, with particular focus in the realm of public art. Each public artwork aims to provide a unique spatial experience for its visitors, while also contributing to the visual identity of a place and catalyzing community engagement.
This practice is propelled by Marc’s expertise in computational design. THEVERYMANY represents a body of research that continues to advance new parametric outcomes and implement complex techniques in architecture and beyond. Each project evolves previous inquiries, and further investigates design though codes and computational protocols, addressing new ways to describe complex curvilinear self-supported surfaces into series of flat elements for efficient fabrication.
Some of these prototypical architectures have acquired and displayed by institutions and galleries including the Centre Pompidou (Paris), where Y/STRUC/SURF is part of the permanent collection, the FRAC Centre (Orleans, FR), and the Storefront for Art and Architecture (New York). Marc has also exhibited at the Guggenheim, GGG Art Basel Miami, Art Paris and sold at auction at Phillips De Pury.
Marc has shared his research as a TED fellow, in public lectures and through academic appointments, artist residencies and workshops. With Francois Roche, he co-founded “(n)Certainties,” a graduate studio at Columbia University with visiting semesters at the University of Southern California and at Die Angewandte in Vienna. He has taught at University of Michigan, Princeton and Harvard GSD with Patrik Schumacher.
In 2007 Marc designed and launched www.scriptedbypurpose.net, the first exhibition exclusively focusing on scripted processes within design, curated for the European section at the 2008 Architecture Biennale in Beijing.
Marc’s professional experience in the UK, US and France include SOM, Ross Lovegrove and ZAHA HADID Architects. At ZHA, Marc was project architect for an experimental Mediatheque in Pau, France. He directed extensive material research and geometrical development for what would have been the largest self-supported carbon fiber shell to date.