Based on the eponymous symposium and exhibition, this book considers the role of architecture in a culture shaped by the excessive manufacture and assuagement of desire. Featuring contributions from a diverse group of architects and scholars, Fulfilled: Architecture, Excess, and Desire examines the architecture of fulfillment organized around three themes: logistical, material, and cultural fulfillment. “Logistical Fulfillment,” the first section of the book, presents designs informed by global networks and distribution environments. Furthering these arguments, “Material Fulfillment” explores the use of materials as elements of global capital, finite resources and aesthetic artifacts. And finally, “Cultural Fulfillment” examines the architecture of desire through the proliferation of designed objects from spoons to cities. Through essays and images of contemporary design projects, this book highlights the physical aspects of material production and the ineffable satisfaction of personal desire, proposing that design is a necessary intangible in an increasingly tangible world.

Ashley Bigham is codirector of Outpost Office and assistant professor at the Knowlton School of Architecture at the Ohio State University. She was a Fulbright Fellow in Ukraine, a MacDowell Fellow, and a Walter B. Sanders Fellow at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. Bigham holds a bachelor’s of architecture from the University of Tennessee and a master’s of architecture from Yale University. Her writing and work has appeared in publications such as MAS Context, Metropolis, Mark, CLOG, and Surface. The design work of Outpost Office has been exhibited at the Chicago Architecture Biennial, Milwaukee Art Museum, Tallinn Architecture Biennale, Roca London Gallery, Wedge Gallery, Yale School of Architecture, Princeton School of Architecture, Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, and The Cooper Union.