10/21/2026
Graduate Thesis 2026 Merit Prize project by Hiina Nohara with advisor Anna Neimark.
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Data lines across a shared field
A digitally uniform line becomes altered when translated into material through the repetitive movement of a pen plotter. Using chalk, markers, and crayons in varieties of tone, width, and softness, graphic qualities emerge by tuning the tool to situated decisions. The tactics of sharpening the chalk, dragging the pen, or dashing the path weave a field of interrelated vectors. Perfect reproduction becomes impossible. Material and temporal distortions allow projections and textures to describe tectonic layers and surfaces, both architectural and infrastructural. In the unfolded drawing, organizational systems connect elevational planes to reflected ceiling planes, extending continuities of pattern and construction to enfold a volume. Rather than treating architectural tools merely as mediums of representation, this thesis incorporates them into the process of design, turning digital data into material strokes.
The repetitive movement of the pen plotter parallels the mechanical systems that shape vast agricultural landscapes, energy grids, and data centers. Relating pen qualities to infrastructures of water collection, heat distribution, data storage, and energy flow brings drawing in direct relationship to design through daft repetition. The building project uses material lines to bring agricultural systems into dialogue with data center infrastructure through three flows: water, heat, and energy. Primitive agricultural infrastructures—canals, irrigation systems, and pipes—are translated into networks supporting the data center. In turn, the data center’s excess heat and energy are shared with the agricultural fields and greenhouses. The by-products of one system become resources for another, creating mutual benefits through conduits of lines. The project challenges the construction of massive data centers by decentralizing their large scale into a network of family-owned agriculturally beneficial units. The drawing process, using paper and ink, becomes the process of making this reciprocal infrastructure come to life. The organization of lines generated by the pen plotter across a shared field of paper connects the existing infrastructure of agriculture to new infrastructural networks of data centers, forming a new typology of farm sheds and barns.
