August 31, 2025 - Surjan Super School Weekly Newsletter

SURJAN SUPER SCHOOL WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

August 31, 2025

Title: ROOFTOP CIRCUITS & COLOR DUCT DREAMS

“What if buildings had emotions, and rooftops could dance?”

FEATURED COLLECTION: DUCTWORK DREAMSCAPES & TECHNICOLOR TOPOLOGIES

This week, the Surjan Super School invites you into a vivid archive of rooftop wonders, where ductwork becomes both infrastructure and identity. From tangled pink and yellow pipelines to speculative interior arteries, this series rewires our relationship to utility, color, and the city skyline.

At first glance, these compositions look like oversized playgrounds or supersized plastic toys—but they’re much more. They’re narrative machines, circulating air, dreams, and possibilities. HVAC meets haute couture. Ventilation becomes voice.

Are these soft infrastructures of joy? Or urban prosthetics?

We see them as techno-surrealist temples floating above the grid.

ARCHITECTURE AS SYSTEMIC POETRY

Each image oscillates between real and imagined: a rooftop in Manhattan becomes a stage for architectural performance. Transparent facades and cutaway sections reveal living quarters entangled with oversized tubing—inhabitable loops, cozy coils, sunlit conduits.

The split-section renderings and hybrid line drawings act as pedagogical tools—offering a lens into the anatomy of a building’s breath. What if the mechanical core wasn’t hidden, but celebrated? What if the "ugly" was turned into color-coded choreography?

LESSONS THIS WEEK

→ COLOR AS CONCEPTUAL STRUCTURE

Pink and yellow aren't decorations—they're design agents. Use color to tell stories about care, expression, visibility.

→ THE VISIBLE INVISIBLE

Expose what is usually hidden. Ducts, pipes, systems—give them shape, dignity, and meaning. Let your building breathe with intention.

PROMPT FOR STUDENTS

Design an architectural system—ventilation, plumbing, wiring, or circulation—that expresses identity.

Give it color, form, character, and emotion.

Make the infrastructure the protagonist.

Let it be visible. Let it be alive.

Until next week,

Stay soft. Stay speculative.—Surjan 🌈🌀

MORE TO COME NEXT WEEK...