![]()
Madeline Gins, along with her personal and artistic partner Shusaku Arakawa, saw the potential in architecture to defeat death. Fluidly moving between built environment, art, design, philosophy, research, and practice, Arakawa + Gins developed what they called "procedural architecture" to manipulate the cognitive effect of the environment on its users—and thus extending their lives. Instead of an endless ennui, the kind of immortality, or "non-death," that Gins sought was "based on inventiveness, and those who are inventive are never bored," she told Architizer. In that spirit, Gins was—remains—immortal herself, despite the sad news of her passing away on January 8. Her unwavering mission to escape defeatism and paralysis lives on through her youthful, restorative work. Arakawa + Gins, Reversible Destiny Healing Fun House, Palm Springs, California, North elevation, computer rendering, 2010- Arakawa + Gins, Reversible Destiny Healing Fun House, interior looking east, computer rendering, 2010- Arakawa's and Gins’s careers took off when they founded the Reversible Destiny Foundation in 1987. Harvesting knowledge from a wide swath of the sciences—experimental biology, neuroscience, quantum physics, experimental phenomenology, and medicine—the foundation's research and resulting architecture took on a ludic and eternally youthful approach, which most ...