URBANSCAN
UrbanScan is the raw data and foundation of LOT-EK’s design methodology, a systematic, obsessive, and ongoing observation and documentation of contemporary urban and suburban realities. This expansive archive focuses on man-made objects and systems, investigating how they proliferate, accumulate, overlap, and interfere with the built and natural environments worldwide.
LOT-EK’s approach to ecology and economy begins with technology, not through utopian promises of effortless futures or false cleanliness, but by uncovering the hidden systems and artifacts that enable architecture to exist. It focuses on the "wrong sides" of things, looking beneath surfaces, under cities, and into the backstage objects that sustain urban life. The archive captures a diverse array of manufactured objects, including air-conditioners, antennas, highways, jetways, shipping containers, scaffolding, ducts, and sheds. UrbanScan highlights the raw, untidy intersections of infrastructure and design, offering a unique and authentic perspective that drives LOT-EK’s creative and sustainable reuse practices.
This ongoing documentation was first encapsulated in the book Urban Scan Atlas, which highlights the raw beauty and transformative potential of overlooked materials. The collection has been exhibited at Alden Projects gallery and is now part of Beth DeWoody’s esteemed art collection.
Learn more:
Alden Projects
