MASSPROCESS is a design research practice in Southern California. Established in 2015, the firm is committed to experimentation and pushing the boundaries of theory in design. Focusing on architecture, our work is collaborative and multidisciplinary. While popular technology often makes life appear artificially complicated, our projects explore and reveal complexity within. Identity, consciousness, perception, emotion, expression; all interracting within ecologies that are often nested and tend toward discreetness.

JOE CARLOS is the principal designer and researcher for MASSPROCESS. After receiving a master’s degree from the Southern California Institute of Architecture in 2011, he worked for several firms including Griffin Enright Architects and HKS Architects before establishing MASSPROCESS in 2015. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in Global and International Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara. In addition to his work at MASSPROCESS he also teaches and constantly works on side projects of all scales, from 3D printed eyeglasses, to international competitions, to art installations. With his unique perspective and experience, Joe is defining new ways to think and talk about design, and reframing architecture for the real world.

His work explores provocative questions related to Object Oriented Ontology theory, or OOO (pronounced ‘triple-O’), and its implications for architecture and art alike. Philosopher Graham Harman describes OOO as “…a relatively new school of philosophy that takes Socrates at his word.” He says, “…since reality is always radically different from our formulation of it, and is never something we encounter directly in the flesh, we must approach it indirectly. This withdrawal or withholding of things from direct access is the central principle of OOO.”