Instructor: Galia Solomonoff
Paradox: To preserve nature, one must first destroy it.
Question: What is nature? When does nature cease to exist? Is man capable of preserving nature?
Magnate: After amassing a fortune in the iron industry, Bernardo Paz purchased thousands of acres adjacent to his mine and created inhotim to protect them from their surroundings.
Inhotim: A synthetic arcadian carpet grafted on to nature in an misguided attempt to preserve it.
Native: What comes is different than what came before.
Provocation: One must confront this difference.
Proposal: To preserve nature from that which is being preserved.
Instructor: Christoph Kumpusch
When the housing market collapsed, huge sums of money seemed to vanish. Its location cannot be found because the money never existed in the first place. In our system, every bank account has a number that is virtually meaningless in every way except to the individual account holder. Everyone uses their number to buy things and the bank’s role is to ensure that the purchaser’s number decreases the same amount that the seller’s number increases.
There is no commodity changing ownership and rarely does any paper money even change hands. Most money that people possess is only ever in number form; it is never currency. They have their paycheck deposited directly into their account from their employer. They pay their bills online where it is deposited directly into the company’s account. At no point does the bank deliver any physical bills to anyone. Money is never touched or even seen. It is only information changing on the computer.
So, not only is there no commodity, there is not even paper bills for most of the money that exists because it is just an idea. It is difficult to grasp how much money exists in dollars because if you were to count how much each individual had in their wallet, and in their checking accounts and savings accounts you would inevitably count money more than once because a bank lends one person’s money out to someone else. Then, that someone opens a business with it and pays his employees who deposit it in a bank, and so on.
This fictional quality of money is inherent in any system of currency, no matter how simple. The stone money of Yap, an island in the South Pacific, exhibits this well where a pre-industrial people used something completely impractical and counter-intuitive: massive stone sculptures in the shape of coins. The largest ones measure 12 feet in diameter, weigh more than a car and are made on a neighboring island 250 miles away out of limestone (not available on Yap). They are then brought over in bamboo canoes, where they used them for important transactions like a dowry or to retrieve the body of a warrior from another village. It is a financial innovation in that it is not required to actually have the stone to own the stone. The stone may sit on the island somewhere and when a transaction takes place, nothing happens to the stone itself. One person’s stone now becomes another’s and that is the only thing that has changed; its ownership merely transfers just by everyone agreeing that it does. It is no different from what we do.
The proposal is of a physical bank structure that is a version of the giant currency on Yap. The form of the bank would allow clients to take ownership of different parts of the building, while the bank’s function would be to facilitate transactions and keep records.
The project is about the fragility of the relationship between a culture and it’s currency, and the faith the culture must have in order to make it work. The “stone” is embedded with no program, everyone must extrapolate their own use of the building. It is a direct translation of the acceptance the South Polynesian culture has in regards to the large, limestone sculptures they barter with.
Instructor: Robert Marino
The vessel was to be capable of containing a minimum of two pounds of sand. Using one material and the repitition of one technique, an array of conical voids were created in the top of the vessel and converged in the center giving the sand its container.
Instructor: Robert Marino
The easternmost end of Long Island has only just recently become a popular recreational adjunct of New York City. As was the case everywhere in the new world, it was initially a place to gain a foothold, a place for survival. Through most of its history it was a seafaring territory, most easily gotten to from Boston Harbor, Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, or Cape Cod. It was land surrounded by the sea, yet blessed with very fertile alluvial soil. Its inhabitants were just as apt to be of the seafaring as well as the farming type, able to gain their livelihood as did WWtheir Native American forbears, through a balance of fishing and farming .
Things have changed. It is now a place primarily appreciated as being one of the last remaining natural environments within a 2-3 hour drive of New York City, and as such it is primarily a place of recreation. The tensions generated by change are evident. One of the most interesting current political discussions involves the theories of land use and preservation: How should the natural environment be used? How much of, and of what type of business establishments should be supported? Are there alternate uses of public land that are more in keeping with open space preservation?
Using the existing Butler building, the new structure hangs off the existing one and offers four zones: under the structure, outside of it, within it, and on top of it.
Built entirely out of wood, the structure takes context from the wooden piers and sheds around the area reminding the users of times in their past when they may have gathered with friends under and around piers and boardwalks.
To access the middle level of the dance hall, one walks under the boardwalk and up gentle staircase that encourages users to use as a hang out spot. Once on the middle level, one experiences the structure of the building while checking in and purchasing refreshments.
Instructor: Michael Morris
Designed for Columbia University and sited in New York City at the southwest corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Amersterdam Avenue, the natatorium transforms the ten lanes of an olympic sized competition pool into ten separate pools. Unique from one another, each lane provides the user with a different experience and challenges the conventional way of swimming.
Provided with a Norman-sized brick, a rubber mold was created for duplication purposes. During the casting process, string was used to manipulate the mold in various positions while the rockite hardened. The result was five different bricks that all shared the same origin.
The five bricks were interpretted and used to inform the design of ten individual pools including one pool in the shape of a standard lane representing the origin.
The user enters the building down a ramp witht the ten pools suspended above them. On the subterraneous floor one can access lockers, showers, and the pools. The opposite side offers a lobby, lounge, cafe, and access to the rear exit and entrance from 125th street as well as access to the roof and pools.
Once on the upper level, the user is provided with only access to the ten, separate lanes/pools. Each pool grants an individual and different experience from the pool/lane that came before and after it.
Instructor: Rafi Segal
Partner: Michelle Kleinman
Within the density of multi-family housing there exists a sense of isolation at several scales: solitude within the unit, detachment from fellow residents, and remoteness from the urban context. This project attempts to break down these conditions by creating an environment where interactions and exchanges are fostered, both between residents and between the residents and the city.
As a means to extend the city into the site and enhance the possible interaction of public programs with the buildings residents, a series of new “street” levels were created. Public program and low-rise residential were placed along the perimeter of the streets encouraging encounters between users and residents. Each street becomes a unique condition cultivating a sense of identity and community on a neighborhood-block scale within the whole structure.
Multiple voids create a porosity that allows for light and air to enter the streets and allow for visual connections and circulation between the levels. The circulation and program draw the public up through the building and encourage interaction between those that visit the space and those that reside there. The dichotomy of public-private is then challenged by reshaping their interaction. The project establishes an inclusive process of social exchange and public engagement.
The site is extruded, then a massive entry is carved out followed by holes giving visual access from adjacent streets to the Harlem River.
The public programs are installed first, then connected with outdoor terraces, and finally the residential program fills in around.
A ramp invites the public into the project, then three large terraces move guests up and throughout the building.
A massive ramp invites the public into the building to interact with residents and those working in the office complex, and to patronize the retail establishments or eat in one of the restaurants.
The building responds to the nearby highway by placing low-rise units in between to act as a buffer while higher, adjacent units enjoy views of the river.
Instructor: Cristina Goberna
The economic crisis is shifting Barcelona’s motives towards increasing globalization to compete in the world market. This is threatening the city’s historic identity and has made it an attractor to disrespectful tourists who treat our streets like any other global party city. Barcelona is not Cabo, Miami, New Orleans, Berlin, Rio or Hong Kong. Barcelona is Barcelona. With the economic crisis, the big budget party industry is gone. Bars are closing, both fancy touristy and cosy traditional ones. locals tend to spend less in partying however enjoy as great parties as ever. In hope for the recovery, Barcelona sees tourism as a way to rise. The Barcelona social life needs preservation,recuperation, transportation and intensification. We are a non-profit group, grassroots oriented, arts initiatives, take advantage of using legislation in a bottom up way - all money we make is poured back into making better and more intense parties. We have a manual that explains how to party and how to make parties within the system. We are locals who run the spaces who want benefit the local economy and Barcelona’s future as the 24 Hour Party Mecca Archipelago. Our initial proposals are small, but as we continue to self invest in the party, it grows and grows and grows
The studio worked together in a group of twelve to write and illustrate a manifesto that was printed and presented at various exhibitions.
Partners: Gawon Shin, Casey McLaughlin, Timmie Tsang, Qiuli Qu
The "Ornate Studios" establish a unique interplay between minimalism when pertaining to structural, mechanical, and architectural details and complexity within the exterior exoskeleton structural wall. In order to establish maximum floor plan flexibility within each floor, we needed to remove as many columns that would diminish this idea. To achieve this, the building is outfitted with hollow core slabs that span from a middle row of columns and beam, to the exterior structural wall. The exterior wall is outfitted with a circular pattern that was dictated by the movement of the sun, which established a uniqueness and complexity throughout the facade. This exoskeleton is made of five different pre-cast panels, with holes that follow a diagrid pattern, so that force flows eventually go through the wall, down into the foundation. This differentiation in orientation was one way of establishing our unique pattern when pertaining to the exoskeleton wall. Once the pre-cast panels are post-tentioned together, the five varied window units snap in from the exterior, and are fixed from the interior. Pertaining to the interior, a raised floor system was established to allow for maximum flexibility in terms of electoral and IT wiring, while the illuminated drop ceiling hides the Supply and Return air ducts, sprinklers and lighting from the internal users direct view. This building strives to be minimal, but that idea dictates complex detailed solutions throughout the building, which have been achieved in a multitude of ways.
Instructor: Michael Morris
To document the deterioration of a sunflower after it had been picked from the ground, photographs were taken in five hour intervals. The outline was then traced and contrasted in a graph to express the significant change and transformation that takes place in death.
Instructor: Nathan Carter
Created out of one 4"x8" piece of maple, 1"x2" pieces were ripped down, planed, and sanded. Then, the pieces were connected together using notches in order to assemble them and construct a bench.
Gut restoration of a one-hundred year old house that had been badly modified in the 1980s.
