Our Manifesto

TOXOS is Greek for arrow of poison, this is our metaphorical tool: one that traces the trajectory of toxicity and seeks to reverse it, redirecting towards care. We are building a collective of emerging professionals of which are typically siloed. We are dedicated to convening radically different ways of knowing, and grounding those conversations in action through local service. This collaboration engine will meet between labs and studios across Columbia. Anchored at GSAPP, we frame one “hyperproblem” each term and create visible, repeatable ways for our community to collaborate through which we will create a database/archive of both physical and digital artifacts – a framework which will be built to grow over time. As GSAPP continues to build opportunities for greater enmeshment between its programs, we hope to amplify this mission.

The group is composed of five founding members within GSAPP: Julio Viejo (AAD), Shannon Levkovitz (AAD), Patrick Rodriguez (M.Arch + CDP), Claire Galla (CDP), Sam Nowak (AUD), and additional collaboration from RED student Abhyudaya Kishore. We value representing perspectives from disparate backgrounds and programs within and outside of GSAPP. TOXOS aims to foster more insightful points of view of pressing worldly challenges as they pertain to local places in New York.

Through our mission, we circulate various medians of world building under the umbrella subject of hyper-toxicities. Upon the first workshop, the founding members will present the focal project but only as a baseline for a network of ideas and relations to other bodies of knowledge.