Ultra Space Lab
At the CCAM Ultra Space Lab, we install principles of curiosity, perception, and artifact-based insight into the built environment, exploring architectural life through sensing, making, and theorizing.
Living in Technology and Design
Rather than optimizing materials or forms, the Ultra Space Lab asks how environments, surfaces, and objects can embody presence, perception, and relational awareness.
Beyond Efficiency
We prioritize research that foregrounds awareness, interpretation, and adaptation, considering architecture as an active participant.
Re-defining Spatial Agency
We ask: What constitutes spatial life? How might sensory mechanisms, artifact-making, and spatial assembly be reimagined and reorganized into alternative spatial systems?
Themes
The Ultra Space Lab is an interdisciplinary research initiative led by CCAM Director and Yale School of Architecture Critic Dana Karwas. Inspired by the work of Arakawa and Madeline Gins, the lab investigates the relationship between the body and space through themes of embodiment, movement, and perception.
Offering fellowships for students, faculty, and recent graduates, the lab generates encounters between art, science, and engineering through research and prototyping. We produce artifacts, installations, and spatial experiments that often interface with technology in unexpected ways, always asking how we can connect more deeply with the spaces we inhabit.
Major themes include:
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The relationship between the body and space
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Designing for environments beyond Earth as a challenge to spatial thinking
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Embodied ways of “seeing” through the whole body
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Movement, time, and perception
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Human–machine calibration
Courses
The Ultra Space Lab was founded through two original courses designed and taught by Dana Karwas at the Yale School of Architecture:
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ARCH 6113: Mechanical Eye (Fall 2025)
Examines mechanized sensing devices, such as satellites, LiDAR, and AI vision, as ways of “seeing.” Students investigate the biases embedded in machine perception and build their own “mechanical eyes,” transforming flattened data into cultural and spatial narratives. -
ARCH 6114: Mechanical Artifact (Spring 2026)
Asks students to design artifacts for environments beyond Earth, introducing the framework M³ (movement, mechanism, and meaning). Students design, prototype, and test artifacts under conditions of altered gravity and physics, using speculative design as a method of invention.
Together, these courses form the pedagogical foundation of the Ultra Space Lab, where research extends into exhibitions, publications, prototypes, post-graduate fellowships, collaborative teaching, and symposia.
Projects & Research
The Ultra Space Lab produces experimental projects that probe the intersection of body, perception, and environment. These projects emerge from courses, fellowships, and collaborations.
Featured Projects
SkyManta
By Wai Hin Wong, Ultra Space Postgraduate Fellow
Sky Manta is a unique Aero-Amphibious Vehicle that integrates eVTOL
(Electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing), sea glider functionality, and tailless
aircraft design. It enables seamless transitions between air and water travel. This
innovative design reimagines how humans explore coastal and aquatic regions, pushing the boundaries of aero transportation. The first phase of the project involves utilizing airflow simulations to determine the ideal form for a low-drag flying machine. Next, the aircraft fuselage’s performance will be evaluated as a sea glider. Finally, the eVTOL system will be integrated into the aircraft, completing the design for dual functionality in both air and water environments.
#Aeronautical design #eVtol #laser-cutting #CNC casting # carbon fiber molding #aerodynamics # CFD air flow simulation
sea jetpack
By Wai Hin Wong, Ultra Space Postgraduate Fellow
A wearable propulsion system inspired by marine locomotion, designed for underwater exploration. The Sea Jetpack investigates movement ecology and adaptation, translating the dynamics of aquatic life into human-augmented mobility.
Sea Jetpack is a wearable underwater propulsion device designed to enhance
divers’ mobility, enabling extended range and duration of underwater exploration.
Its innovative design allows for hands-free operation while effectively countering
strong water currents. This project represents a journey toward achieving a
high level of design excellence. Fluid dynamics simulations were employed to
optimize the jetpack’s shell for streamlined performance, while the craftsmanship
incorporates durable materials like stainless steel and carbon fiber, ensuring
reliable operation in extreme environments. The components are meticulously
sealed to withstand water pressure at depths of up to 30 feet. The project also
involved close collaboration with engineers for prototype testing, refining the
jetpack to meet the demands of underwater exploration.
#marine engineering design #CNC casting #waterjet cutting # carbon fiber molding
# wearable device #fluid dynamics
Pear of Anguish
By Kaiwen Xiwen
A spatial sculpture to allow people to visualize airflow in space.
Caustic Memory
By Deming Haines
Uses projected light and water refraction to create shifting memory-scapes. The project explores perception, impermanence, and embodied recall.
Lightcatcher
By Olga Kedya
A head mounted kinetic installation that harvests, redirects, and fragments light, mimicing the experince of a “horizon line” traversing spatial awareness through motion and reflection.
Cosmic Dice
By Raven Xu
A chance-based artifact that reimagines randomness as a cosmic force. Cosmic Dice engages probability, fate, and spatial play.
Dzhanibekov’s Shot Glass
By Bohan Chen
Inspired by the “Dzhanibekov effect” (the tennis racket theorem), this artifact destabilizes balance and orientation, simulating altered gravitational physics.
A Conversation Pit in Space
By U Jean Seah
A rethinking of domestic furniture for zero gravity. The piece uses offsets, modular forms, and restraint systems to explore gathering in non-terrestrial environments.
Cosmic Harmonics
By Christy Ho
An interactive installation that translates astronomical data into sound. Visitors experience cosmic resonance through auditory immersion.
Seed
By Xinran Li
A speculative biosphere artifact that imagines how seeds adapt in altered gravitational conditions, merging design with ecological futures. The seed equipped with three flywheels, will always point to earth.
Gyro Pen
By Priscilla Barker
A writing tool stabilized by gyroscopic motion. The Gyro Pen rethinks authorship, hand–tool calibration, and balance in non-standard physics.
S.T.A.R. Watch
By Kai Feng Wu
A wearable device that measures stellar time signatures, collapsing astronomical data into personal timekeeping.
SPACE TIME ASYNCHRONOUS RELAY WATCH
When the answer to
“how many kilometers”
no longer means anything,
so we ask instead:
“how many seconds?”
What’s it like to miss someone across vast time and space? Imagine the future of deep space travel, communication delay, and the reality of talking to loved ones. A time keeping and space keeping system, a pair of devices for a pair of loved ones, that accompanies each person on his/her/their journey into deep space.
Candy Gyroscope
By Corinna Siu
A whimsical mechanism where candy becomes mass in rotation, teaching movement, inertia, and playful balance. Food can be more fun.
Reach Out
By Kai Feng Wu
A haptic interface that extends tactile sensation across distance, inviting new modes of embodied communication. Reach Out is an experiment on a timeless philosophical inquiry - one’s being in the world - through a personal VR experience. It highlights the hand as an everyday instrument of embodiment. The hand protrudes out from our torso; it senses, manipulates, and projects our will onto the world. In “A Thousand Brains,” Jeff Hawkins introduces a novel theory of consciousness, emphasizing the importance of reference frames to our inherent sense of self. What if we could invert the reference frame, and the hands? The project explores the potential of immersive machines to be more than an imitation of reality - what questions can we start asking by strategically distorting and altering familiar interactions?
Pocket Galaxy
By Grant Dokken
A hand-held device generating miniature celestial simulations. Pocket Galaxy explores scale, wonder, and speculative cosmology.
The artifact is a modified gyroscope with no utility - it is a toy that begs experimentation. The artifact measures 300mm x 300mm x 25mm when flat packed (and 300mm x 300mm x 270mm at its maximum dimension). It is comprised of 10 concentric rings (the largest of which is 300mm in diameter) that get progressively smaller by 15mm for each consecutive ring. The toy allows for experimentation and discovery surrounding the mechanics of rotation. Ideally, with more time, the artifact would act as an ambient and ephemeral light source. The artifact is a reaction to the independent behavior of objects in space. It is a cascading and hierarchical chain of motion- dependent-upon motion. The artifact utilizes those physical properties that still apply in space (angular momentum, inertia, kinetic energy etc.) Properties which might also be applied in a manner that can instigate similar mechanics to those produced by gravity’s mathematical rigor.
Zero-gravity is romanticized as a condition that creates possibilities, but there is something odd about life without gravity.
There is no other force so ubiquitous or consistent as that of gravity on Earth. It is a constant condition producing non-linear results. Without gravity we lose an intangible thread of connection. Gravity allows us to predict how two seemingly unrelated things might exist in relation to one another. Gravity creates curves, arcs, parabolas, and waves. It is responsible for complex patterns that seem to change in unpredictable ways - it is the invisible numerical medium. Despite this, it is unflinchingly rigid. It is dependable and comforting. It is a pleasant reminder of self. Without gravity, we may gain some interesting potentials, but ultimately, we lose a powerful and beautiful phenomenological bond.
Floragami
By Kevin Wong
An origami-inspired artifact that unfolds in response to light and heat, merging plant-like adaptation and mechanical structure.
The project appropriates the whirlpool spiral folding pattern (originally by Tomoko Fuse) as a growing medium in zero-g conditions.
The experiment hypothesizes that the golden angles provided by the folding pattern provides two essential considerations for life in space; light exposure and growth patterns.
The golden ratio between each unfolded polygon will provide optimal exposure to multi-directional light sources. Additionally, by mimicking the same growth pattern found in nature (pinecones, sunflowers, artichokes etc), the project hopes to introduce resilience in the wildflowers grown in zero-g.
With these considerations in mind, the project combines 10 whirlpool spiral modules to form a central and omnidirectional growing sphere.
Materials
Wildflower seed embedded paper
Double Sided Tape
Super Glue
Space Video Reorientation Object
By Yang Tian and Paul Meuser
A perceptual study in visual distortion and reframing, challenging how data and perspective shape what we see.
The Video
When we can see far enough, we spot the earth’s horizon; it is easy to understand; it is perpendicular to the vertical gravity. Without the indicator of earth’s gravity, space’s horizon relies on the object in space and space’s background for us to understand its orientation. The designed device could misalign with the concept of “upright.” Our prototype would be documented by video during a parabolic flight. By post-editing the video to center the object in the video frame, we aim to juxtapose the spatial movement of the object and its space to what we are familiar with here on earth. The background would rotate around the now stabilized object; we hope to capture this movement and play between the object and the environment without any clear orientation.
The Object
We hope to expand the visual experience through mirrors to physically divide the space into up and down and expand the reach in both directions. Because the object will float in the chaotic context of a zero-g flight with both other passengers and experiments, the angles we capture should offer the viewer glimpses of orientation. The traditionally grounded space of the aircraft with floor and ceiling juxtaposed with bodies floating through space should provide an exciting backdrop to the video performance.
At the center, however, is still our focused object. We took inspiration from Peter Campus’ KIVA art piece to embed mirrors into our subject. This should separate the object from the surrounding and offer us an abstracted first-person view of the object, adding to the idea of a third space. As a point of focus, we saw it fitting to add ‘the blue marble’ photo as a photographic artifact of space exploration and as the literal grounding point for our video. The picture is fixed to a two-sided mirror coin, one with the positive earth at the center and the other with a negative imprint. This should both distinctly separate the sides of the coin and offer us moments of the interaction of both the background, object, and self-reflections of the observing camera.
Symposia
The Ultra Space Lab anchors CCAM’s biannual symposia, which bring together global voices in design, science, and the arts.
2025 Symposium – Illuminations
An interdisciplinary event series curated by CCAM that brings together artists, scientists, designers, and researchers to investigate the intersections of technology, media, and culture.
2024 CCAM Symposium — Ultra Space: Adaptation/s
April 4–5, 2024. A two-day event inspired by Arakawa+Gins featuring the grand opening of ISOVIST Gallery and guests including Momoyo Homma (Reversible Destiny Foundation), Takashi Ikegami (University of Tokyo), Setareh Samandari, and Habib Zargarpour (Blade Runner 2049).
2023 CCAM Symposium — Ultra Space
Launched Ultra Space research at Yale with keynotes and dialogues bridging architecture, artificial life, and speculative practice.
2022 CCAM Symposium – Machine as Medium Symposium
An exploration of machines not only as tools, but as collaborators in the production of meaning, examining sensing, automation, and media technologies as artistic and architectural agents.
Publications
Maquette Articles (Ultra Space Related):
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Ultra Space: Dana Karwas in conversation with Sarah Oppenheimer
Other outputs include the CCAM Printed Volume (launched 2024), coverage in Yale News, Paper Magazine, MASH India, and Daily Nutmeg.