Dichotomy 17: Exchange

17 EXCHANGE

Editor Nicholas Piotrowski Copy Editor Kaitlynn Young Business Manager Nathan Lohrer Staff Phillip Martin AJ Noto Samuel Stevens Brian Wisniewski

Faculty Advisors Professor Amy Green Deines Professor Noah Resnick Price $20.00 US University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture 4001 W McNichols Rd Detroit, Michigan 48221 313.993.1523 Printing: Heath Press, Royal Oak, MI Copyright Š 2011 by Dichotomy | University of Detroit Mercy All rights reserved. No part of this issue may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from Dichotomy.

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Dichotomy, a student published journal of the University of Detroit 002 003 004 strives 005 007 Mercy School of Architecture, to be006 the critical link to the discourse on design, architecture, urbanism, and community 009 010 012 014 016 development.

Like the institution, Dichotomy focuses 018 on social justice and critical thought concerning intellectual, spiritual, 022 024 026 028 030 ethical, and social development issues occurring in and032 outside of Detroit. The aim of Dichotomy is to disseminate these relevant investigations conducted by students, faculty, and professionals.

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Intro: Dean Stephen Vogel

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Editor’s Note: Nicholas Piotrowski

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Melissa Dittmer + Amy Green Deines: CIVIC ENGAGEMENT

Andrea Boschetti + Alberto Francini: RADICAL EXCHANGE

Nicholas Piotrowski: CAN I EXCHANGE THIS?

Jake Lyon: THE REACTIVE CITY

Brian Wisniewski: SITUATIONAL SCHOOLING

Claudia Bernasconi: ARCHITECTURAL MUTISM

Frank Fantauzzi + Charlie O’Geen: 760 WAGNER AVENUE

Amy Green Deines, Noah Resnick, + Justyna Zdunek-Wielgołaska: EXCHANGE Ania Jaworska: CONFETTI TOWER

James Chesnut + Nisha R. Patel: PANTANAL PARTNERSHIP

Jeffrey Maniaci: CORKTOWN COFFER CREDIT UNION

Beverly Fre$h: PERFORMER AND PLACE

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This year, the staff of Dichotomy is excited for new beginnings. The last time a Dichotomy was published was in 2006, the year before I was a freshman at the University. Today, thanks to the hard work of our small but dedicated staff, and their countless hours of sacrifice, the journal is on a new, more sustainable path.

With a fresh new layout, and standards for future years that allow for exciting new content and quicker production, you, the reader of Dichotomy can expect many more great issues of our journal.

Inside this year’s edition, you will find an introduction to our theme by University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture Dean, Stephen Vogel, who has diligently served in this role for 18 years. We are honored for him to introduce the new Dichotomy before he steps down as Dean and moves back into teaching after a year sabbatical. This year’s edition on ‘Exchange’ is packed with interesting articles on everything from exchange programs, the workings of the profession, and even a flip book. Inside, within the dynamic content, you will find a diverse set of voices including students, professionals, academics, and performance artists from the university and to far away as Italy.

In closing, we hope you enjoy the new Dichotomy as we strive to produce a truly critical and rich journal that furthers the discourse on architecture and design.

From humble beginnings in 1978, to today’s new beginnings in 2011, welcome to the new Dichotomy.

Your Editor, Nicholas S. Piotrowski DICHOTOMY 17

T

he word “exchange” suggests the act of changing one thing for another.

An exchange therefore can be of ideas, people or things. The rich diversity of articles found in this issue of Dichotomy explores exchange from multiple viewpoints. The first article, “Civic Engagement: Multiple Scales of Public Exchange” documents the exchange of ideas between the City of Detroit and a team of consultants asked to create a new framework plan for re-visioning one of the world’s shrinking cities. “Radical Exchange” posits that if concrete architectural reality is not enriched through a dialogue (exchange) with a more intellectualized and research orientation vision of the city, practice consequently becomes simply a mundane following of the rules.

“Can I exchange this? A Commentary on the Role of the Architect” makes a case that architecture must change into a field that is “more in line with the realities of a complex and politicized world.” It is posited that an exchange of ideas between practitioners, clients, stakeholders and allied professionals might lead to a new definition of the architect’s role in the world. “The Reactive City” outlines a proactive process for the City of Detroit to receive and respond to ideas from its residents and, vice versa. “Situational Schooling” explores the exchange of knowledge in the contemporary world of social networking and instant, but questionable, information. The very essence of a school as a physical place comes under question.

“Architectural mutism: The house, the man, and the metropolis in the architecture of Adolf Loos” looks at the theories of Loos from house interiors to façade and to city beyond (Vienna) and the exchange between them as the world of the “modern” unfolds at the turn of the century. “760 Wagner Avenue” explores how an abandoned house can be a reductive learning tool for creating more efficient structures of the future. This is an exchange between past, present and future.

“Exchange: Detroit and Warsaw” documents the exchange between Detroit and Warsaw architecture students and professors and their research from a particular year of a program that has lasted over 30 years. The exchange between the

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University of Detroit Mercy and the Warsaw University of Technology is the longest continuously running academic program between Poland and the United States. “Confetti Tower” explores the exchange between architecture and art in order to develop a new means of design practice that more clearly and actively represents contemporary culture and social engagement.

“Pantanal Partnership: Building Education in the World” takes a unique look at a building system for Brazil that can change with unpredictable field conditions not readily knowable to the designer. This interdisciplinary collaboration between local knowledge in Brazil and “experts” in Michigan illustrates again that exchange is a two-way street. “Corktown Coffer Credit Union” takes the simple idea of a cooperative means of saving and exchanging money and brings to it a new idea of the collective: a place where people meet, live, work and see firsthand their money being used to promote community development. The program for the Credit Union takes architecture into a new realm of community investment.

Finally, “Performer and Place” looks at the transference of the private process of the artist to the public engagement of exhibitions, performance or design product.

The author does performances at historical or archeological sites in front of “forced audiences” that creates a tense dynamic “between physical history and societal ego.”

As can be seen, the Exchange volume of Dichotomy is rich in diverse ideas that cause one to question the very foundations upon which we have built our world.

Happy reading!

Dean Stephen Vogel, FAIA University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture DICHOTOMY 17

Melissa Dittmer is an architect and associate at Hamilton Anderson Associates (HAA) a multidisciplinary design firm based in Detroit. She received her Bachelor of Architecture from the Illinois Institute of Technology and her Master of Science in Architecture and Urban Design from Columbia University. Her design projects have been featured in the publications: Constellations: Constructing Urban Design Practices, Constructing Urbanisms: Design Competitions, and ‘Places : Design Observer’. Her articles on architecture, urban design theory, post industrial strategies, and professional practice have been published in critical international journals Topos, MONU, and The Plan.

She is the creator and editor of a Detroit based design blog, www.roguehaa.com, in addition to co-organizing a bi-monthly design lecture series, lecturesHAA, that focuses on Detroit regeneration strategies. Most recently, Melissa has been working on the Detroit Works Project, a multi-disciplinary, international effort at designing the future of a depopulated, post-industrial city.

Melissa Dittmer & Amy Green Deines:

As graduate of the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Masters of Architecture in 2000, Amy Green Deines has a diverse design background that builds on her academic training in industrial design and architecture. Amy is an Associate Professor at the University of Detroit Mercy, School of Architecture where she teaches Architectural Design Studios, Graphic Design, Interior Design, and Graduate Seminars. Ms. Deines has presented her work and lectured numerous times at various universities and conferences. Amy is a professional designer with experience in both the public and private sectors.

She has been involved in numerous prototypical projects that have been awarded four United States Patents involving technology and customization.

Ms. Deines received a university supported grant titled “Reclamation and Re-use of Materials Salvaged: The Demolition of 3,000 Homes in Detroit involving the repurposing and categorization of reclaimed materials from post-industrial landscapes. Most recently, Amy contributed and acted as guest editor for the journal entitled, The Plan, Urban Development published in Milan, Italy, December 2010.

Civic Engagement: Multiple Scales of Public Exchange

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176 178 180 182 184 186 To track Detroit’s trajectory over the last fifty years by any standard metric is to watch a city in decline. Once a city that was home to 1,850,000 citizens in the 190 192 194 196 198 200 1950’s, Detroit currently suffers from population loss, poor public schools, poverty, crime, infrastructural failure, racial tension, and political corruption that often 204 206 210press.212 214 grace the headlines of both208 local and international Punctuated by the most recent release of census data, Detroit has lost yet another 25% of its population 218 220 222 224 226 228

over the past decade; the city is balanced on the precipice of total erasure. This paper will attempt to evaluate civic exchange as a means to design a new urban strategy. Additionally, it will look at the way in which our academic models prepare or under prepare future thinkers to engage the public in an active way with measurable outcomes. The strong convictions concerning the significance of public exchange and the impact of outside forces are the common thread throughout this paper. At some point within a crisis concerning a city like Detroit, the stakeholders from all directions must evaluate its effectiveness and relevance.

For example, college education and the academic experience must engage a larger milieu than that of the insular walls of the academy. Additionally, the way in which the city administration reaches out to the public must be evaluated and refined based on the current needs.

The recently started “Detroit Works Project” [http://detroitworksproject.com] demonstrates the importance of this single moment in time. As a comprehensive “framework plan” for the city, the project is being developed collectively by local and national consultants,1 as well as city leadership, supporting agencies, and representative citizens. From detailed demographic analyses, infrastructure diagrams, economic models, and health statistics, it is incumbent upon the project team to develop a rigorous, evidence-based methodology for the development of the plan. This is important for the plan’s functionality and implementation, but also for ensuring confidence with citizens, policy makers, and investors.

At the same time, the team is engaged in a multifaceted civic engagement research effort to understand the salient perspectives that will help to shape the plan. These insights are critical to the plan’s development, and they must address the diverse perceptions within the city, as well as those outside. Quite often such prevailing positions are motivated by specific issues, especially those that may be contested.

For these reasons, the “Detroit Works” civic engagement process is sequential and corresponds to the data and opinions collected from its participants throughout the project’s multiple phases: 1. Listening, Learning and Analysis 2. Making Tough Choices 3. Choosing a Strategic Direction 4. Plan Adoption.

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DICHOTOMY 17

Other cities in recent times have also looked to civic engagement as a way to collaborate with the public with some success. Youngstown, Ohio is a small, former steel-belt city, which has seen disinvestment, a shrinking population, vacancy, lack of diversity in it’s population, and blight. Youngtown leadership has engaged the community and has created a drastic plan to turn the city around by accepting the existing scenario and reacting in a responsible manner. This city has embraced shrinking as a strategy in collaboration with its residents.

Some experts have speculated that strengthening the educational landscape in Detroit will tremendously help with future strategies. Detroit, like other shrinking post-industrial cities, has also experienced ‘brain drain’. Detroit has seven Universities within its city limits. These quality institutions produce thousands of graduates each year. Only a fraction stays to root, invest, and live in Detroit and this creates a population that lacks diversity in race, age, and educational backgrounds. Recently, Detroit has reached out to the existing population to obtain and gather opinions, suggestions, and concerns about the city and its future. A variety of programs are offered as incentives for graduates to stay in the city. For example, start up money is offered for small business incubators through a variety of universities located in Metro Detroit.

Additionally, social organizations are becoming introduced that frame Detroit as a city to ‘play and live’ in. The formation of many of these initiatives is collaboration and the exchange of ideas. This exchange happens at the scale of the city administration, the citizens of Detroit, and the local universities and businesses collaborating with its young educated graduates so that they will stay, invest, and live. The key to any healthy American city is found in embracing civic engagement as a planning strategy, reaching out to the youth that are currently living in the city and retaining college graduates. These three ingredients speak to a brighter future and allows for positive public investment and security that sustains healthy, rich environments. If we do not engage students during their academic years and acquaint them with the city of Detroit, they may not feel responsible to stay.

Many perspectives, interviews, stories, and narratives recently surround the City of Detroit and its status. The interviews included in this piece offer perspectives from the ground floor of the city and speak to the significance of civic engagement, retaining the youth, education, and optimism as it relates to the future of Detroit.

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The following interviews were conducted with two of the most relevant woman in Detroit who are organizing and coordinating both the entirety of the “Detroit Works” project and the civic engagement process. The first interview questioned Toni Griffin, an Associate Professor of Urban Planning at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. Toni has committed to serve as the Co-Project Director for the Detroit Works Project. The second interview questioned Karla Henderson, Group Executive Planner and Facilitator for the City of Detroit. Karla works directly with the Office of Mayor Dave Bing. Both interviews covered a multitude of topics, ranging from vacancy, depopulation trends, repopulation strategies, new visions for the future, and many others. Moreover, while there were many commonalities between the two discussions, a single theme emerged - the extreme importance of civic engagement in Detroit’s evolution.

As witnessed in the following interviews, the implementation of a place-specific civic engagement process is crucial in the development for a healthy, self-sustaining new American City, such as Detroit.

The following interviews were recently published in The Plan Milan | Detroit, Dense, Rarefied 047 [12-2010] THE PLAN - Architecture & Urban Design via del Pratello 8 - 40122 Bologna, Italy T +39 051 227634 | F +39 051 220099

Interview 1: Toni L. Griffin Urban Planning and Design for the American City 52 West 120th Street, #4 New York, New York 10027 Conducted by Amy Green Deines, AIA Associate DEINES: What is your current role in Detroit?

GRIFFIN: I am serving as the Co-Project Director for the Detroit Works Project.

Detroit Works involves a 12-18 month planning process with following key objectives: • Articulate a shared vision for the future of Detroit at the scale of the region, city and neighborhoods • Set near term priorities and actions that affect neighborhood stability such as the

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Public Works Forums, Photos: Detroit Free Press

elimination of blight and opportunities for job creation. • Build a framework and strategic direction for coordinating public and private investments throughout the city. •Implement a process for both inclusive citizen engagement and interagency coordination.

Detroit Works also includes an effort to examine the city’s operational and administrative systems and propose strategies for how they can be reformed to efficiently support both the current challenges as well as the future vision for the city.

The transformation of a city like Detroit really does require a shared vision amongst all of those sectors because each will play a role in implementation. We believe that to take on this challenge all the stakeholders must be active participants in the process.

We have established an advisory task force that includes residents, businesses, civic and faith-based leaders, nonprofits and philanthropy. We have also created an interagency task force inclusive of city and regional operations and policy departments.

We have designed an architecture of civic engagement that includes a diverse set of tools that create multiple ways to interact with stakeholders. This includes facilitating both small and large scale public meetings, creating tools and events that promote planning awareness, and establishing a project website, detroitworksproject.com,

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that will allow people to obtain information, provide comments and ultimately participate in real-time discussions. In this way, all sectors will have a shared ownership in the plan and we envision that the plan will create specific roles for all sectors, public and private, to have an active role in executing the vision.

DEINES: What was the result in terms of public contribution during the first Detroit Works discussions?

GRIFFIN: Public safety was and is a large concern, but residents also talked about the importance of community stewardship. A number of people every night would talk about what they were doing with their block club. They recognized that the city could not support all their maintenance issues. Many residents shared stories of taking care of vacant lots on their street in partnership with their neighbors.

Some of the audience participants challenged other citizens to do the same thing.

People also talked about how they want to see a repurposing of the abandoned residential stock, for example, how can we take houses that have the potential for rehabilitation and provide those people who are in less desirable conditions a new opportunity.

DEINES: What are the citizens of Detroit mostly concerned about?

GRIFFIN: It has been a long time since this community has been asked to look comprehensively at itself. It is a city not unlike other U.S. major urban centers that have a similar history, where people were forced to move when freeways plowed through their communities. Many of these cities, particularly those that have been disinvested for so long, have scars and wounds from the past, but fresh memories of the civic disruption. This community has lost confidence in its local government and so issues related to what is going to happen with vacant land makes people fearful. They fear that they will be forced to move again and they fear that parts of the city are going to be sold off to different municipalities. We are entering this process knowing that people are fearful of the future, fearful of what will happen to the assets that they have claimed, in terms of their house and their property. They are concerned about whether or not they can trust their government to work in their best interest. When you design a process, given the communities’ sentiment concerning their city, you have to allow people to vent. Also, you have to establish trust and transparency before you can get to a place where you can talk about the tough issues and choices to move the city forward. We envision there will be a

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whole range of different types of meetings that will have to occur. Some will have to be focused on planning awareness, efforts that introduce people to the basic concepts of the planning and implementation process. The recent five community forums where over 4500 people attended were intended to connect people with their government. Participation was very strong and people appreciated having some connection to the new administration.

DEINES: Can you talk about the civic engagement process and how it relates to Detroit as a shrinking city?

GRIFFIN: I question calling Detroit a uniquely shrinking city and I find the way in which the profession is latching on to this term quite interesting. If you look at the population of most of our urban cities, populations have has been declining for about 50 years. Most of the shrinkage has occurred because of the land use and transportation policies that ultimately promoted sprawl. It is being exacerbated because of the collapse of the economy in the last couple of years, the mortgage foreclosure crisis, and cities ending up with large portfolios of land assets that they can no longer maintain. There are cities that are similar to Detroit that are also at this crisis asking how do we reposition and realign government structures and city systems to deal with this type of land condition. These cities are not changing the political boundaries based on shrinking population. When we finish this process, Detroit will still consist of 139 square miles. We are designing a long-term plan that deals the maintenance of land and retooling of city systems in the near term and the repurposing of land for future needs.

DEINES: Arts and culture in the city of Detroit has been instrumental in cultural growth, evolving ideas into realities. How can the administration utilize and cultivate this strong asset in our city?

GRIFFIN: We are engaging such groups, currently looking at where these types of activities land spatially in the city, and how we can build on them. The art scene is a sub-culture that is growing, and has much excitement surrounding it.

We want to tap into it. The grass roots initiatives should continue, and we want to understand how the collection of small ideas might become a big idea when you add them all up. We have been spending time gaining an understanding of what these initiatives are, where they are, and how to support them.

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DEINES: How has the city administration engaged youth in the regeneration of the city? How can the youth of the city (and suburbs) take a larger role in Detroit’s urban renewal?

GRIFFIN: We have not engaged the youth enough. We have some young adults in their 20s on our advisory board and we had a number of children attending our smaller scale meetings. We are very excited about the idea of going to local schools and engaging the future beneficiaries of our planning efforts. One thing I like to bring into the planning conversation is the question: “who is the city for?” Certainly over the next year, we are going to be in conversations with people who currently use the city. However, in many ways we are planning for people who are not here today, were planning for the 10 year old who in 20 years will be 30. We have to put ourselves in this mind set. Yes, we want to include youth is this conversation because we are planning the city for them. The planning that we are doing is really for the next generation.

Interview with Karla Henderson City of Detroit - Group Executive Planning and Facilities Office of Mayor Dave Bing 65 Cadillac Towers, Suite 2300 Detroit, Michigan 48226 Conducted by Amy Green Deines, AIA Associate DEINES: What type of active language is being used to describe the future physical landscape and how it is defined and manipulated? Is the current “Detroit Works” project being utilized as a “rebranding” effort? Has this process been intentionally publicized on multiple geographical scales to reinvent Detroit’s reputation?

HENDERSON: Others have speculated on the idea of urban villages; our position is not to brand or refer to the city as something specific because we are not to that point. However, one term that keeps being used by this administration, as it relates to the future of the city, is ‘re-purposing’ of land and place. We are not using terms such as resizing or shrinkage or right sizing.

DEINES: How does this “Detroit Works” community engagement process differ from the previous master plan processes?

HENDERSON: This process is unique; it is adapted as we move forward. We respond to the voices of the citizens of the city. It also embraces the reality we face, without

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being overwhelmed by it. Previous efforts were focused on making Detroit the same city it used to be. Through this effort, we understand Detroit will never be the same city it was in 1950. The difference for this administration is that we are not paralyzed by that fact. Detroit can be a great city in

the 21st century, leading a new wave of urban renewal.

DEINES: Please talk about the youth involvement in the regeneration of Detroit.

Source: Detroit Interrupted, Toni Griffin and Andrea Hansen, Harvard GSD, Spring 2011

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HENDERSON: Recently, Mayor Bing held a youth summit and actively engaged those who attended. One of the main topics dealt with the educational system in Detroit. We know that if we do not fix our educational system our youth will not have an opportunity to become successful, productive citizens. The mayor stated that we have to be open to other models. In those arenas where we are successful, we need to be supportive and duplicate them, whether they are in public, private, parochial or charter schools.

In six years, the population of Detroit Public Schools [DPS} has decreased by 50%. The lack of quality education in Detroit is one of the factors that put the city in the difficult position we’re facing today. People are voting with their feet, let people have a say of what the school district looks like. We are working with our youth because we realize they are the future of our city.

DEINES: Detroit is a segregated city. What is the administration doing to try to introduce diversity? Are there any tangible incentives to bring people back into the city?

HENDERSON: We are focused on stopping the citizens who are leaving. Trying to plug the population loss is one of our first priorities.

One of the things we realize, as Detroiters, is that we are not very welcoming.

We are very proud people in terms of accepting outsiders; I think we have to understand that. We have to embrace people who were not born and raised here.

We have to embrace the fact that some people who choose to relocate to Detroit may have positive/negative opinions about the city. We need to change the culture regarding this issue. The 2010 census indicated that the white population increased from 8.3% to 13.9% for the first time in 60 years.* This is very exciting and speaks directly to younger residents moving into the city, of all backgrounds. We need to embrace what new populations can bring to the city, without taking away from what makes Detroit a unique place.

DEINES: Obviously, education is the most critical issue that the city is facing, despite the need to address demolition, land use, vacancy, and the void. We need to engage our youth and offer them a state-of-the-art education and community. * refer to data on page 12 for the most current census data.

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HENDERSON: The Detroit Works Project has taken on a life of its own.

Everyone is rallying around us and we have so much enthusiasm and excitement surrounding this process. Numerous foundations have been extremely generous.

The Obama administration is very supportive of Detroit and its future. We have support from the U.S. Department of Housing and Development [HUD] that is assisting us to recreate incentives for the citizens of Detroit. The mayor says “we need to ‘move the needle’ - we saw where status quo has gotten us; we need to get out there and try new things.”

We need to permeate this attitude to the culture of all city departments. I recommit myself to the city and this process everyday. I choose to have a positive effect on those around.

DEINES: Can Detroit become a prototype of a new Post-Industrial City based on the administration’s process of civic engagement? Have you been approached by any other city administration concerning our process of planning?

HENDERSON: Everyone is watching us at this point. I was approached by the city of Houston who is interested in modeling our demolition plan. Everyone is fascinated the civic engagement process. Because of a leadership void, the people elected Mayor Bing to lead them out of this crisis. There is so much positive energy surrounding this process. Community forums were conducted and we underestimated the amount of citizen participation. We feel this is a good problem to have. We responded to the people by reformatting the program and the content of the next forum. They were not ready to discuss what Detroit looks like in 2030, they needed to talk about their issues. We are a different administration in many ways, specifically we listen and respond. Each meeting was more and more successful in receiving input from the people of Detroit. We put a lot of the key directors and chiefs in the sessions with us. We had the Chief of Police, the Fire Commissioner, Public Lighting official. When individuals had questions we could refer them directly to the leadership in that particular area. We found also that the younger generation wanted to talk about the future of the city while some of the mature residents wanted to talk about what was wrong with Detroit. At any rate, the next 40 meetings will be catered to allow all voices to be heard and documented.

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The desire to include citizen engagement in the process of defining and implementation of the new vision of Detroit is high priority. One of Mayor Bing’s first priorities centers on demolishing 3,000 abandoned homes within Detroit this year. These demolitions have already started. The residents can visually see the action taken by the new administration of the city. Removing the blight is a major strategy of the Mayor to win back the trust of Detroit’s residents. Image credit, A.Deines

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DEINES: The city’s current administration has begun an impressive campaign of the demolition of 3,000 vacant, dangerous structures per year. Can the way in which demolition is planned become strategic, concerning open/green spaces in the city? Is the city considering a parallel deconstruction or architectural reclamation program?

HENDERSON: Detroit is engaging a process of design; frankly, there is a planning fatigue. Detroiters are tired of hearing what the city should be and want to see action. We know that implementation has to go hand-in-hand with this plan. The mayor, Dave Bing, has made it clear to us that while we are having this discussion, things need to occur. People need to see a physical change, and probably one of our top visual changes is our current demolition plan that directly affects the neighborhood and its residents.

We have been approached by several organizations, not only about deconstruction but also about machines that are designed specifically to sort demolition debris.

This year we said 3,000 homes will be demolished; once we said that we made a commitment to achieve this by year-end. We have some parties interested in demolition and the city is ready and willing to partner with demolition contractors to ensure materials are recycled and not end up in a landfill. The city is not prepared or interested in managing the business of the end use of materials, but is ready to collaborate with demolition contractors and those interested in developing a reclamation center to deal with materials. The city is also aware that this has the potential for jobs in the city and is willing to support this effort. This venture would be considered a new business that would fall under a public/private partnership.

The premium is too high currently for deconstruction with costs ranging from $7,000 – $20,000 to deconstruct a home, and the urgency to tear down 3,000 homes is greater at this point, although we understand and fully agree with all of the environmental benefits of recycling. We want to get to the point where we are not in the demolition business; but prior to dealing with the excess of land and void, we must remove the blight. This is the moment that removal of the blight is a signifier of progress. The removal is taking place in the neighborhoods where people are living. The removal of the Michigan Central Train Station is equivalent to 3,000 homes. The city is concerned with creating safer neighborhoods as a high priority, especially where children are living in the city.

Demolition in the past was not handled strategically. When we began the process of mapping the demolitions, you clearly saw various clusters beginning to form. In

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areas where we are executing high amounts of demolition, we have the weakest housing stock, high amounts of violent crimes and arson. We focused on those areas to prioritize where to begin the demolition process.

DEINES: What does Detroit look like in 2020?

Public Works Forums, Photo Top: Detroit Free Press, Photo Bottom © Marvin Shaouni Photography

HENDERSON: We will have stronger neighborhoods by repopulation and rehabilitating the structures within them.

In ten years, we will have some new development on current vacant land, but more importantly we’ll have a broad plan for what we’re going to do with the vacant spaces. It is going to take a long time, but once we establish where we want to focus our residential investment, we can begin to plan and speculate reprogramming of the vacant land. Our goal is to create neighborhoods where people want to live, with all the amenities you would want in your neighborhood. It is not an easy task, but hopefully Detroit will be a place where individuals want to relocate because of the positive change and unique opportunities.

The same goes for business attraction. The Detroit Works Project will help us deliver city services more efficiently, including public safety, which plays a large role in bringing jobs and investment back to Detroit.

Substantial improvements are needed in public transportation. The first steps are already being taken. An environmental

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Images at UDM exhibition with Professor Deines studio UDM/SOA, Professor Griffin and Hansen Harvard GSD, Professor Dewer and Thomas University of Michigan.

study is taking place right now to evaluate the feasibility of a new light rail. We are speculating that there will be a light rail from Jefferson to Eight Mile Road. A $25 million dollar commitment was made from the Department of Transportation [DOT] and millions of additional dollars of support from the Kresge Foundation, Ford Foundation, and others. We are looking at European cities for additional models.

Conclusion In support of the Detroit Works Project, local universities have become involved in a type of civic engagement that has resulted in academic and intellectual investment.

Recently, the University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture hosted Professor Toni Griffin and her Harvard Graduate School of Design studio, as well as studio Professors Margaret Dewer and June Thomas from the University of Michigan’s School of Architecture.

In a full day event, nearly 60 academics presented their research, design concepts, and proposed directions for the city of Detroit. Members of the city government, Detroit Works project team, and concerned citizens voluntarily participated in the public exchange, suggesting that the crosspollination of academic and professional discourse is essential to the development of a successful civic engagement process. This type of event proved the relevance that such a program has on a student living within a city such as Detroit. Most of the students involved have seen a new side of Detroit and

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CIVIC ENGAGEMENT

as a result feel convicted to have critical discussions about the future. Common to both the professional and academic model, public exchange requires the facilitation of both internal and external opinions. College education in general must engage a larger milieu than the traditional model. Students should be encouraged to step outside of their personal process within the academy and argue a critical public position in the city. Based on wide exposure, broad experiences, and a variety of disciplines, it is our belief that students who are taught and practice this model of civic exchange have a stronger understanding of the ever-changing economic, political, and cultural situations, which are increasingly influential in the processes of architecture and urban design and the health of our American cities.

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Andrea Boschetti & Alberto Francini: Radical Exchange

Lo studio Metrogramma, fondato nel 1998, da Andrea Boschetti e Alberto Francini, esplora molteplici temi di progettazione seguendo un approccio univoco al di là della scala e della dimensione dell’intervento.

I lavori come lo studio sulla densificazione a Bolzano (Habitat_BZ 2001), il piano Darsena per la città di Ravenna (Epicentro Candiano) e il PGT di Milano, sono il risultato di uno sguardo operativo e sperimentale sulla città contemporanea.

Oltre alle tematiche urbanistiche e alle ricerche sulla città contemporanea, Metrogramma è incaricato, in Italia e all’estero, di importanti progetti quali : complessi residenziali, alberghieri e terziari.

La ricerca e sperimentazione ad ogni scala del progetto hanno valso allo studio numerosi riconoscimenti (2003 Medaglia d’oro’Architettura Italiana, 2004 Benemerenza Presidenza della Repubblica per cultura e arte...) oltre che la partecipazione ad importanti esposizioni e convegni internazionali (Biennale di Architettura di Venezia 2000, 2008, 2010 e di Londra e di Brasilia nel 2008).

001 008 020 034 048 062 076 090 104 118 132 146 160 174 188 202 216

002 009 022 036 050 064 078 092 106 120 134 148 162 176 190 204 218

003 010 024 038 052 066 080 094 108 122 136 150 164 178 192 206 220

004 012 026 040 054 068 082 096 110 124 138 152 166 180 194 208 222

005 006 007 014 016 018 030 032 042 044 046 056 058 060 070 072 074 084 086 088 098 100 102 112 114 116 126 128 130 140 142 144 154 156 158 168 170 172 182 184 186 196 198 200 210 212 214 224 226 228

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Founded more than ten years ago when Andrea Boschetti and Alberto Francini joined forces and expertise, Architecture and Urban Design practice Metrogramma has been engaged in a wide range of planning and development briefs. Their approach remains unchanged whatever the breadth of the project in hand. Projects like Bolzano’s densification of (Habitat BZ01), Ravenna’s docks urban development (Epicentro Candiano) and the new Milan UDP demonstrate their combination of technical operative skills and experimental outlook for the contemporary city.

As well as its contemporary urban design and research interests, the practice is also engaged in many important architectural projects both in Italy and all around the world. Those projects range from residential and hotel to the tertiary complexes. The continuous drive to push back horizons and explore unchartered areas has earned Metrogramma numerous awards. These include the 2003 Gold Medal for Italian Architecture and the Award for Merit in Culture and Art from the President of the Italian Republic. The practice has shown at some of the world’s key exhibitions and international meetings: the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2000, 2008 and 2010, the London Biennale in 2008 and the Brasilia exhibition also in 2008.

RADICAL EXCHANGE Imparare dal paesaggio esistente è, per un architetto, un modo di essere rivoluzionario

RADICAL EXCHANGE To learn from the existing landscape is, for an architect, a way of being revolutionary.

Le due accezioni, contenute sono da un lato il paesaggio esistente e dall’altro il significato di essere rivoluzionario, e che se messe a sistema si traducono in osservare e progettare. Cosa significa essere rivoluzionario? Cosa significa imparare dal paesaggio?

The quotation above refers, on one hand, to the existing landscape, and on the other, to the sense of being revolutionary, which, if systematized, means to observe and to plan.

What does it mean to be revolutionary?

What does it mean to learn from the landscape?

Forse semplicemente saper rispondere, attraverso la ricerca progettuale, ai fenomeni che investono la contemporaneità con architetture e progetti urbani capaci di dare una risposta ai fabbisogni reali degli individui e degli ambienti abitati.

All’interno del significato delle parole di Venturi vi è il significato implicito di EXCHANGE secondo l’ interpretazione del lavoro di ricerca condotto da Metrogramma.

L’attenta lettura del contesto diventa un’ espressione di empatia con esso per riconoscere nuove opportunità e trasformarle attraverso il progetto in potenzialità capaci di generare cambiamento in termini fisici, politici, economici e culturali. Il progetto di architettura e di urbanistica è in questo senso per Metrogramma lo strumento di ricerca e di scambio tra realtà e cambiamento necessario per la costruzione di una vision.

Voglio ora introdurre attraverso il racconto di una ricerca progettuale condotta da Metrogramma, HABITAT BZ 2001, come il significato di EXCHANGE tra paesaggio e progetto abbia generato un dibattito scientifico disciplinare e la

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Maybe, it simply means to find the answer, through design research, architecture and urban projects that respond to the real needs of individuals and built-up spaces, to the phenomena that affect contemporaneity.

In the words of Venturi you can read the meaning of “EXCHANGE” according to the interpretation of the research work conducted by Metrogramma.

A careful reading of the context allows an empathy with it and the identification of new opportunities which, through the project, may be transformed into a potential capable of generating a change in physical, political, economic and cultural terms.

An architectural and town-planning project represents, in this sense for Metrogramma, a tool for research and exchange between reality and change, which is required to build a vision.

I now want to mention the research project conducted by Metrogramma, HABITAT BZ 2001, and how the significance of

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vision per la futura trasformazione urbana.

Siamo partiti dall’osservazione della città e del paesaggio esistente. Abbiamo riconosciuto una città complessa, multiforme, policentrica, inscritta in uno spazio costituito da molteplicità ambientali, topografiche, culturali e di habitat tra loro irriducibili: una città “compatta”, densamente urbanizzata e consolidata; una “frammentaria” dei capannoni e dei depositi per

L’obiettivo esplicito del lavoro HABITAT BZ 2001 è l’individuazione di nuovi possibili scenari di espansione e densificazione del territorio della città di Bolzano. (img.001)

exchange between landscape and project has generated a scientific disciplinary debate and the vision for a future urban transformation.

The explicit objective of the work HABITAT BZ 2001 is the identification of new scenarios of expansion and densification of the Bolzano’s territory.

The explicit objective of the work HABITAT BZ 2001 is the identification of new scenarios of expansion and densification of the Bolzano’s territory. (img.001)

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Bolzano città estesa e multipla (img.002)

Bolzano the sprawled multiple city (img.002)

la raccolta di mele, dei magazzini commerciali, ma anche dei piccoli agglomerati residenziali autosufficienti disseminati sulle montagne intorno alla città; una “diffusa” a bassa densità, prevalentemente rurale, che si distende sulla piana agricola del lungo fiume Adige in direzione Nord Sud; una città “lineare” dura, incastonata nei bordi della costa, che costituisce il limite netto con le pendici irte delle montagne.

Una descrizione che coinvolge attraverso uno sguardo ampio tutto il territorio comunale di Bolzano e che oltrepassa i confini fittizi dettati

We started by examining the city and the existing landscape. We recognized a complex, multifaceted, multi-center city inscribed in a space formed by nonreconcilable environmental, topographical, cultural and habitat varieties:

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- a “compact” city, densely urbanized and consolidated; - a “fragmentary” city made of apple warehouses and sheds as well as small residential self-sufficient clusters scattered

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dalla relazione pieno/vuoto, urbano/rurale.

Bernardo Secchi ha definito la città contemporanea come “quella nuova forma urbana, comprensiva della città antica, della città moderna e della città diffusa”.

Bolzano è esattamente questo: una città contemporanea con una marcata identità locale ed una forte caratterizzazione ambientale.

Abbiamo indagato le due componenti principali che compongono il tessuto urbano, gli habitat costruiti e gli spazi aperti, individuando un ulteriore articolazione tipologica al loro interno.

Grande attenzione si è prestata al tema della topografia, in quanto decisivo per ogni ambiente esplorato. Nei diversi ambiti, più o meno antropizzati, la topografia evoca le caratteristiche specifiche del luogo.

Le tipologie di spazi aperti principali sono: -i boschi con i loro diversi elementi di vegetazione che strutturano le pareti della montagna -le superfici agricole, parcellizzate, costituite da colture differenti che disegnano un puzzle complesso di territorio produttivo (vite - frutta – pascolo) -gli spazi aperti urbani verdi, pavimentati, disposi in modo lineare lungo i fiumi e puntuali all’interno del tessuto edificato.

Le tipologie d’habitat pricipali sono: -le collane residenziali a bassa densità, prevalentemente autosufficienti, che si affacciano sulle radure a pascolo dei boschi intorno a Bolzano -l’edificazione rurale diffusa all’interno della

on the mountains around the city; - a “stretched” low-density, predominantly rural city which spreads northerly-southerly on the agricultural plain along the river Adige; - a “linear” city set on the edges of the coastline which borders with the rugged slopes of the mountains.

This is a comprehensive approach that through an extensive look at the whole Bolzano area goes beyond the fictitious boundaries given by the relation between full/empty and urban/rural. Bernardo Secchi has defined the contemporary city as “the new urban form which includes the ancient and modern city and urban sprawl”.

Bolzano is exactly that: a contemporary city with a strong local identity and a strong environmental characterization.

Bolzano the sprawled multiple city We investigated the two main components that make up the fabric of the city, the builtup habitats and open spaces, and identified a further typological articulation within them.

Great attention has been paid to the issue of topography, as decisive in any environment explored. In many areas, more or less humanized, the topography evokes the specific features of the site.

The main types of open spaces are: - the woods with their different elements of vegetation which make up the walls of the

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piana agricola produttiva della valle, i grandi oggetti che punteggiano la campagna come i capannoni per la raccolta della frutta, i magazzini artigianali e commerciali -la città consolidata vera e propria, esito di un lungo processo di selezione cumulativa.

Sulla base delle caratteristiche territoriali riscontrate, si sono individuate quattro ecologie, tenute insieme da un complesso sistema di connessione infrastrutturale costituito dai fiumi, autostrade, strade principali e ferrovia.

Considerazione che ha aperto ad alcune prospettive nuove di sviluppo e crescita della città.

Uno sguardo nuovo che ha saputo individuarne il carattere di città multipla.

All’interno di quest’ultima è possibile sintetizzare quattro archetipi di ambiente urbano, quattro modi di abitare, quattro tipologie di spazio fisico e psicologico:

mountains.

- the fragmented agricultural surfaces made up of different cultures that form a complex puzzle of productive land (vines fruit - pasture) - the urban open green spaces, paved, linearly arranged along the rivers or pointspecifically set within the built fabric.

The main types of habitats are: - the residential low-density, self-sufficient areas which overlook the grazing grounds surrounded by the forest around Bolzano - the rural buildings spread throughout the agricultural plain of the valley - the large objects that dot the countryside as the sheds for fruit harvesting, warehouses of craftsmen and merchants.

- the built city, as the result of a long process of cumulative selection.

L’Agro_city è riconoscibile nel paesaggio, presente

On the basis of the territorial characteristics verified, four ecologies have been identified

4 città/ecologie/realtà di cui si compone Bolzano, Agro-city, Poly-city, Border-city e City-in.

4 cities/ecologies/realities that form Bolzano: Agro-city, Poly-city, Border-city, and City-in.

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nelle valli e sulle pendici dei monti, scandita dalle trame dei territori agricoli e produttivi; “texture” colorate che disegnano “pezzi” di paesaggio omogeneo e compatto.

La Poly-city è costituita dall’insieme dei frammenti disseminati sulle montagne e nelle valli; frammenti che disegnano una città policentrica e fortemente autonoma rispetto alla città consolidata. La natura funzionale di tali materiali urbani è differente e va dagli insiemi di agglomerati residenziali di montagna ai grandi oggetti commerciali disseminati nelle valli e lungo le strade principali.

and held together by a complex system of infrastructural connections such as rivers, highways, roads and railroads.

These considerations have opened some new perspectives for the development and growth of the city. A new vision that has been able to identify the nature of a multiple city. Four archetypes of urban environments, four ways of living, four types of physical and psychological space have been identified within the multiple city: in other words the 4 cities / ecologies realities that form Bolzano: Agro-city, Poly-city, Border-city and City-in.

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Misurazioni: densitĂ , spazi e altezze

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Measurements: density, spaces and heights

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La Border-city è la città dura, lineare, di confine (tra edificazione compatta e natura) che si confronta con le pendici delle montagne. L’area di pertinenza di tale ecologia è lo spessore che include l’ultima linea d’edificazione urbana ed il primo fronte alberato delle montagne. Castelli arroccati, bunker scavati nella roccia, tipologie di verde naturale e passeggiate urbane costituiscono le caratteristiche principali per una valorizzazione dei suoi significati propri.

La City-in, infine, costituisce l’ecologia propriamente urbana e più consolidata come immagine di città; all’interno di questa gli spazi vuoti o che si liberano diventano i motori di grandi trasformazioni e l’occasione per ridisegnare parti di città.

SCENARI DI DENSIFICAZIONE Dopo una fase più analitica, interpretativa, si è passati a un’ indagine più diretta, fisica intorno alle caratteristiche dei diversi habitat individuati, tentando di far emergere alcune ipotesi di come questi potrebbero accogliere processi di densificazione; si è passati ad una fase più operativa dove si è lavorato sui quattro habitat misurandoli, stabilendo principi insediativi fino ad arrivare alla formulazione di quattro scenari meta progettuali finali, indicazione di uno sviluppo possibile.

Dopo aver individuato e valutato il tessuto urbano esteso, si è passati a misurarlo letteralmente, attraverso l’applicazione di un programma fittizio di densificazione: 40.000 nuove abitazioni di taglio medio pari a 100mq.

Lo scopo era esplorare le possibilità del territorio

The Agro-city is recognizable in the landscape of valleys and slopes, punctuated by agricultural and productive areas, colored “textures” which define the homogeneous and compact landscape.

The Poly-city consists of fragments scattered over mountains and valleys; fragments that form a polycentric and strongly independent city if compared with the built city. The functional nature of these urban materials is different and goes from the residential mountain conglomerations to the commercial structures scattered along the valleys and the main roads.

The Border-city is the linear, border city (between compact edification and nature) in contrast with the slopes of the mountains.

The main characteristic of this kind of ecology is thickness. It includes the last line of urban structures and the first tree-lined edge of the mountains. Hilltop castles, bunkers dug into the rock, green typologies and urban walks are the main features for the enhancement of its meanings.

The City-in, finally, is the proper urban and more consolidated ecology and the image of the city. Within this type of city, empty and freed spaces become the engines of great changes and the opportunities to redesign parts of the city.

DENSIFICATION SCENARIOS After a more analytical, interpretive stage, we directly investigated the physical

DICHOTOMY 17

di assorbire una così consistente domanda di edificabilità.

Le aree delle ecologie precedentemente individuate sono state utilizzate come “contenitori ideali” della crescita urbana prevista ed immaginifica.

Abbiamo quindi provato a collocare, secondo un criterio razionale di disposizione a griglia regolare, in ciascuna zona d’espansione 10.000 case. Sono stati fissati quindi alcuni criteri invarianti - un modulo base di terreno di 25m. x 20m. ed un indice di copertura del 35% - lasciando libero il numero d’alloggi per lotto. Ciò che in questa prospettiva varia è quindi l’altezza dell’edificato e la distanza tra i lotti all’interno di una singola ecologia. L’esplorazione che abbiamo condotto considera variazioni da 1mc/mq a 35mc/mq per singolo modulo.

Questa investigazione non tiene conto di alcun criterio qualitativo ne di habitat, ne di paesaggio, ma descrive solamente alcune prestazioni quantitative; essa intende mettere in rilievo soprattutto un tema, a nostro parere rilevante sul fabbisogno edificatorio a Bolzano, cioè la relazione che intercorre tra altezza delle case e qualità dell’habitat.

Sulla base delle simulazioni quantitative effettuate e sull’insieme delle considerazioni da esse derivanti si sono individuati nove principi insediativi (progetti norma) che disegnano una carta delle trasformazioni della città. I progetti norma costituiscono uno degli strumenti a disposizione del progetto urbanistico e comunicano alcuni principi insediativi cui il progetto si riferisce. Questi concetti concorrono

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characteristics of the various habitats identified, trying to bring out some perspectives on how they could house densification processes. Then, the project moved to a more operational phase as we worked on the four habitats by measuring them and fixing principles of settlement up to the formulation of four final metaplanning scenarios, as the indication of a possible development.

Measurements: density, spaces, and heights Having identified and evaluated the extended urban fabric, we literally measured it, by applying a fictitious densification program: 40,000 new average homes of 100 square meters. The aim was to verify if the area may absorb such a large demand for buildability. The areas of the ecologies previously identified were used as “ ideal cases” of urban growth planned and imaginative. Then, we tried to place, according to a rational arrangement on a regular grid, 10,000 homes in each expansion area. Afterward some invariant principles were set - a basic form of land of 25m. x 20m. and a coverage ratio of 35% - while the number of housing per lot was free. What varies in this perspective is therefore the height of the building and the distance between the lots within a single ecology. The exploration that we conducted considers changes from 1m3/m2 to 35m3/ m2 for each module.

This investigation does not take into account qualitative and habitat nor

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all’assegnazione di nuovi valori e significati ad alcuni habitat caratteristici della città di Bolzano.

I progetti norma immaginati sono simulazioni di spazi e non architetture nell’accezione concreta del termine. Essi intendono verificare il grado di fattibilità di alcune ipotesi progettuali che perseguono, nel rispetto di alcuni caratteri ecologici rilevanti per la conca bolzanina, le necessità di crescita urbana. In questo senso i progetti norma non sono da considerarsi come strumenti prescrittivi immediatamente operativi, ma come concetti spaziali attraverso i quali stimolare un dibattito sulle regole che governano le trasformazioni della città di Bolzano, il materiale di Scambio.

Le simulazioni rappresentano la sintesi di una visione progettuale astratta e di uno sguardo pragmatico operativo. I progetti norma city IN tentano di valorizzare al massimo gli spazi pubblici e collettivi non riducendoli a banali quantità standard, ma trasformandoli in “materiali progettuali” irrinunciabili all’interno del processo di densificazione della città.

I progetti norma POLY city e BORDER city utilizzano gli indici di edificabilità per determinare il carattere spaziale delle diverse parti di cui la città si compone.

I progetti norma AGRO city propongono nuovi modi di abitare. La gestione degli indici è, nei nostri progetti, strettamente correlata alla gestione delle differenze. Nuovi e diversi modi di abitare pertinenti a specifici contesti ecologici. Differenze

landscape criteria, but describes only some quantitative performances and aims to highlight a relevant theme, in our opinion, that is the building need of Bolzano, in other words the relationship between height of housing and habitat quality.

Guide projects (“norma” projects) Based on the quantitative simulations performed and on all the considerations arising from them, nine principles of settlement (“norma” projects) have been identified that outline a map of the transformation of the city.

A “norma” project is an instrument of the urban plan which identifies some of the principles of settlement which the project refers to. These concepts allow to assign new values and meanings to some habitats which characterize Bolzano.

The guide projects conceived are simulated spaces and not architectures in the real meaning of the word. They are useful instruments to verify the feasibility of some project ideas, which in respect of some major ecological characters of Bolzano valley, pursue the need for urban growth.

In this sense, the guide projects will not normally be regarded as immediately effective, prescriptive tools, instead as spatial concepts, as Exchange material through which to stimulate a debate about the rules that govern the transformations of the city of Bolzano.

DICHOTOMY 17

The 4 cities of Bolzano are therefore intended mainly as horizons, new exchange materials between landscape and project capable of generating new visions for the future. (img.008)

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che si pongono come obiettivo principale quello di non cancellare – come spesso invece accade - i caratteri paesaggistico-ambientali più significativi ed a salvaguardare, al tempo stesso, la loro autonomia ed identità in relazione ad altre parti della città.

Costruire scenari significa definire uno o più ordini ipotetici tra i diversi fenomeni che investono la città. Proveremo, quindi, a mostrare alcune ipotesi di densificazione urbana a Bolzano nella forma di una conclusione immaginaria.

Ogni scenario è da intendersi come una direzione “estrema” di sviluppo della città.

Nessuna di queste ipotesi, infatti, deve essere osservata come una visione plausibile e realistica di progetto. Tali scenari vanno invece messi in relazione alla dimensione argomentativa e retorica che li accompagna e che deve condurre ad un momento riflessivo durante il quale l’intera città dovrebbe essere ripensata dai suoi stessi cittadini.

Con questo lavoro di ricerca non abbiamo voluto proiettare i nostri desideri o proporre sforzi estremi d’immaginazione, ma solamente formulare alcune ipotesi a partire da un’esplorazione delle potenzialità intrinseche della città di Bolzano.

Proponiamo quindi quattro immagini metaprogettuali e concettuali di Bolzano esemplificative e sintetiche ed alcune “situazioni” possibili; quattro ipotesi di densificazione del territorio esteso della città tra loro opposte ed alternative .

Ciò che emerge con chiarezza è il punto di vista sulla natura prestazionale (da non confondersi con l’accezione di funzionale secondo la

The simulations represent a summary of an abstract, planning vision and of a pragmatic, operative reading.

The “norma” project city-IN tries to maximize the public, collective spaces standards not by reducing them to trivial standard types, but turning them into “planning materials” indispensable in the process of densification of the city.

The “norma” projects POLY-city and BORDER city use the building index in order to determine the spatial character of different parts which make up the city.

The “norma” project AGRO-city offers new ways of living.

The management of indexes is, in our projects, closely related to the management of differences, new and different ways of living relevant to specific ecological contexts, as well as differences that have the primary objective to not delete (as it often happens) the most significant environmentallandscape characters, and to safeguard, at the same time, their autonomy and identity in relation to other parts of the city.

Final scenarios Building scenarios means defining one or more hypothetical orders between the different phenomena that affect the city.

Therefore, we will try to show some ideas of urban densification in Bolzano as an imaginary conclusion.

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Scenari finali (img.009)

Final scenarios (img.009)

vecchia logica pragmatista) della città stessa.

Una descrizione del paesaggio cittadino che si contrappone, a nostro avviso, con decisione ai criteri che hanno guidato prevalentemente la crescita spesso autoriferita estetica e compositiva della città di Bolzano in anni recenti.

Each scenario is intended as an “extreme” direction of the urban development. None of these assumptions, in fact, must be viewed as a plausible and realistic vision of the project. Such scenarios are instead placed in relation to their dialectical and rhetorical dimension and must lead to a reflective moment during which the entire city should be reconsidered by its own citizens.

Ciò che può cambiare attraverso questo lavoro è la presa di coscienza che Bolzano la si deve ormai osservare da diverse visuali facendo emergere l’intersezione di diversi sguardi e percezioni: non solo dalla città verso il paesaggio agricolo, montano e di costa ma anche viceversa.

I processi di densificazione, che abbiamo simulato,

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With this research we did not want to project our desires or propose extreme imaginative efforts, but only make some assumptions through the exploration of the

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intendono in questo senso perseguire logiche interne pertinenti ai caratteri delle specifiche ecologie. Agro_City, Poli_City, Border_City e City_in, stabiliscono relazioni tra loro come se fossero i “pezzi” di un puzzle raffigurante la città estesa di Bolzano.

Le 4città di Bolzano, quindi, sono da intendersi anche e soprattutto come orizzonti di senso, nuovi materiali di scambio tra paesaggio e progetto per generare nuove visioni per il futuro.

Works Cited: 1 Venturi R., Scott Brown D., Izenour S., Imparare da Las Vegas, Quotlibet Abitare, 2010 2 Metrogramma, S. Tischer, H.Hoelzl, 4città. Scenari di densificazione a Bolzano, Bolzano, November 2001 Image Credits: Img.001_ HabitatBZ01 Img.002_ Bolzano the sprawled multiple city Img.003_ The four Bolzano’s ecologies Img.004_ Ecology: Agro_City Img.005_ Densification scenarios: Measurements Img.006_ Densification scenarios: Measurement Agro_City Img.007_ Densification scenarios: Guide projects Img.008_ A Vision for Bolanzo Img.009_ Densification scenarios: Final Scenarios

intrinsic potential of Bolzano. We propose four meta-planning, conceptual, synthetic, illustrative images of Bolzano and some possible “situations”, four contrasting cases of densification of the extended territory of the city.

What emerges clearly is the point of view on the performing nature of the city (not to be confused with the meaning of the functional nature according to the old logic of pragmatism). A description of the city landscape that decidedly contrasts, in our opinion, with the criteria that have guided mainly the aesthetic often self-referential growth and composition of the city of Bolzano in recent years.

What can be changed through this work is the realization that the Bolzano should now be seen from different points of view, bringing out different readings and perceptions, not only from the city to the rural, mountain and coastline landscape but also vice versa.

The processes of densification we have simulated, in this sense, mean to pursue the internal logic relevant to the characters of the specific ecologies. Agro-City, PolyCity, Border-City, and City-in establish relationships between them as if they were “pieces” of a puzzle outlining the extended city of Bolzano.

The 4 cities of Bolzano are therefore intended mainly as horizons, new exchange materials between landscape and project capable of generating new visions for the future.

DICHOTOMY 17

Nicholas Piotrowski:

“Can I exchange this?�

A Commentary on the Role of the Architect Nicholas Piotrowski is a queer, glamazon, homosexualist, activist, socialist, and architecture student. He is currently completing his masters degree in architecture at the University of Detroit Mercy. The focus of his studies have been at the intersection of social justice, design, and society.

He is also the current editor of Dichotomy. Nick was born and raised in Bay City, Michigan, where he spent most of his time plotting to get out. Nicholas currently lives in Detroit, Michigan, with his cat Ms. Benji.

001 008 020 034 048 062 076 090 104 118 132 146 160 174 188 202 216

002 003 004 005 006 007 009 010 012 014 016 018 022 024 026 028 030 032 036 038 040 042 044 046 050 052 054 056 058 060 064 066 068 070 072 074 078 080 082 084 086 088 092 094 096 098 100 102 106 108 110 112 114 116 120 122 124 126 128 130 Architecture, as a profession, has a problem. That problem is how we, as those who practice136 and study the138 profession, view what our role in the world144 is. Maybe 134 140 142 it is time to exchange some of the ideas about our role for others, to perhaps create a richer, more diverse, and more dynamic field of architecture. One that 148 150 152 154 156 158 is filled with more dynamic opportunities for exchange between practitioners, clients, stakeholders, and the community. Architects must be willing to realize 162 164 166 168 170 172 that our clients are all types of people, from all walks of life. To ignore this fact is perilous to the profession. We as designers must exchange our single role as the architect178 for the multiple roles of designer, activist,184 advocate, politician, and 176 180 182 186 so much more. Issues of race, class, sexuality, nationality, age, ability and broad socio-political conflict are all issues for the architect. The built environment that 190 192 194 196 198 200 we create influences these issues, and we have two choices; to either continue to be complacent toward them and create spaces that disenfranchise, or to find a new 204 206 208 212 way to understand these issues and their210 effects on people and space 214 so we may design spaces which empower everyone.

218 220 222 224 226 228

044

Architecture and Reality: Living with Blinders On Increasingly, the United States is becoming a more diverse society. This is especially true for the nation’s youth, where 44% of all Americans under the age of fifteen are of a racial or ethnic minority.1 The nation is also experiencing significant shifts in family norms. Marriage rates have been falling consistently since the 1960s, divorce rates have been rising, and children are increasingly being raised in single parent households.2 Sexually, Americans are more diverse as well, with lesbian and gay same-sex partners living in 99.3 percent of all counties in the United States.3 America has certainly moved past the days of the idealized white, middle class, abel bodied, heterosexual family. Yet the privilege of white mens’ perspectives in society still prevails in many facets of American life.

The prevalence of white men’s control is undeniably true in the field of architecture.

By the numbers alone, the American Institute of Architects found that 72 percent of licensed architects identify as Caucasian, and only 14 percent are women.4 Besides an utter lack of diversity within the rank of architects, the profession also seems to view matters of social justice irrelevant to their work. Simply put, the realms of race, gender, class, and sexuality are often seen as outside the profession’s scope of concerns.5 This lack of concern, in the least, can be viewed as naive, and at best may make architects tacit in a train of “isms” from racism to heterosexism and many others in between. Most disconcerting of all is the indication of architects designing spaces for the majority of people whom they are ignoring.

This continued failure to recognize diversity within the profession and work of architecture risks marginalizing the profession from the whole of society.

Architects must begin to understand and design with minority communities in mind, because architecture is not simply pretty objects in space. Individuals active in design must fight to leave this long held mentality behind. While architecture is about aesthetics it must also consider functionality and responsiveness. Historically, the profession has failed at achieving this. For example it took a law to mandate accessibility for the disabled, and that did not happen until 1990. More than anything though, architecture is an activist and political act. The political nature of architecture is in the original sense of the term “political” - it affects the lives of citizens - according to Jeremy Till, the Dean of Architecture and the Built Environment at the University of Westminster.6 The effects of architecture are broad and although the profession intends to design for positive effects, that is not enough. There must be a cognition of the vast diversity of society. Architects

46

CAN I EXCHANGE THIS?

must understand society not through a homogenous concept of who the majority is, but instead by taking into account the diversity of society, in order to be truly responsive. Failure to do so makes architecture complacent in oppressing already oppressed groups. Oppression in this sense is structural, and based in the everyday practices of well intentioned liberal societies like the United States, not on the coercion of a tyrannical power.7 Therefore, by practicing design as we have always done, without critiquing the work and norms of design that our societies and clients ask of us, we oppress others within society.

The critical, problem solving nature of the profession provides architects the tools to combat these inherent difficulties. Architects must be willing to commit themselves to the needs of an ever diversifying population. Without such a commitment, the profession risks increasing irrelevance, as spaces will continue to fail to meet the needs of the vast mosaic of society. Merely by expanding the theoretical lens of architecture into anthropology, sociology, and philosophy, practitioners can fine tune their ideology to make themselves more relevant to our increasingly diverse world. This article explores the diversification of architectural thought specifically through the history, theory, quality, and design of queer space(s) on the urban and architectural scale. Such studies should be further expanded and continued with the multitudes of identities that exist. The design result of these studies should not create a single solution, for it would fail. Instead such an approach lends itself to a strategic design process in which multiple solutions consider trends and intersectionality of people, places and communities.

An Alternative Approach: Intersectionality Questioning homogeneous thinking requires considering individuals, communities, and spaces in a different way. Feminists, when studying oppression, use a concept for analyzing individual’s identities called intersectionality. “Intersectionality refers to particular forms of intersecting oppressions, for example, intersections of race and gender, or of sexuality and nationality.�8 In an increasingly diverse society, as in the invariably diverse LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) community, intersectionality allows one to understand the levels at which oppression occurs within individuals and groups without pitting any one identity against any other. Critical to the concept is the idea of thrownness, or that identities are not chosen by individuals, but by societies which label individuals with identities, regardless of ones preference.9 The white straight man chose to be a white man no more than a black lesbian chose to be herself.

DICHOTOMY 17

Oppression is also always in dichotomy with power and privilege. This is what makes intersectionality so important. It is a window to see both conditions. The application of intersectionality to architects creates powerful tools for understanding both urban and architectural spaces, and the ways in which they may oppress groups.

For example, in the study of queer space, the traditional perceived identity and

function of gay neighborhoods is a prime example. Richard Florida’s Rise of the Creative Class fully buys into the concept of gay communities as communities of wealth which can function as an economic development tool for cities.

Florida’s theory is supported by perceptions of what it is to be gay, and those perceptions are further fueled by the gentrification the creative class theory supports. Although gay neighborhoods may start as ethnically,

Traditional Model of Queer Gentrification

“Claims transform, through renovation, what dominant culture has abandoned so new and old are in explicit juxtaposition ” - Cottrill

48

1

ORIGINAL RESIDENTS MOVE OUT

REAL ESTATE $

2

QUEER RESIDENTS MOVE IN

REAL ESTATE $

3

MINORITIES M AND AN LOWER INCOME QUEERS QU MOVE OUT

CAN I EXCHANGE THIS?

sexually, and economically diverse, as time passes gentrification begins to take place. The LGBT community begins to dissolve down to being a white, gay, middle class, male community.10 Through this process, the economically marginalized members of the LGBT community are pushed out of these gay neighborhoods due to ‘market’ forces. However, this gentrification is actually oppression of the economically marginalized. The dominate white gay male segment of the LGBT community acts as a colonizing element of gentrification which profits from class, race, and gender privileges.11 After this process of oppressive gentrification has taken place, the homogenous white gay male community that is left further perpetuates the concept that gay neighborhoods are white, male and wealthy.

Manuel Castells, a sociologist, noted this trend in 1970s San Francisco, where the gay community was geographically segregated, with upper income and middle class individuals living in the Castro, and poor individuals residing in the marginal areas of the city, such as South of Market, and the Tenderloin.12 Segregation in the LGBT community, much like larger societies, is not only about class but also race. For example, typically, black gay men are segregated from community resources such as organizations and bars, even when they are located in black neighborhoods.13 The application of intersectionality brings to light the mirror like reflection of the norms of oppression of larger society within the LGBT community. Intersections of sexuality and race, and sexuality and class exist.

Thus, gay neighborhoods are a non-productive area of study because they too are oppressive under the lens of intersectionality.

Understanding Queer Space(s): Heterotopias One danger of social justice architecture is that it may evolve into a mental utopia, a completely perfect place where oppression no longer exists. Without a complete and total revolution of societies, utopias are not a realistic option, and are best left to fantasy and dreams. As the the philosopher and historian, Michel Foucault notes, “They (utopias) represent society itself brought to perfection, or its reverse, and in any case utopias are spaces that are by their very essence fundamentally unreal.” Although the world does not contain any utopias, that does not mean that all space is completely hegemonic, and dominated by the white, heterosexual male perspective. According to Foucault, there already exists counter-arrangements of real arrangements within societies. These space(s) are heterotopias, and they represent places that lie outside of all places but are still localizable. Within such a counter-arrangement the real arrangement is represented, challenged, and overturned. For individuals in society, heterotopias

DICHOTOMY 17

Transparent Layer Model

Translucent Layer Model MEDIA PRESENTATION

COMMERCIAL ESTABLISHMENTS

MARKETING

CULTURAL CUSTOMS

PUBLIC EVENTS

POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS

represent a state of disunion with the norm of society, and thus are sacred, privileged, or forbidden spaces.14 Spaces which are queer such as gay bars, bathhouses, book stores, social clubs, and individual homes present a counter-arrangement to that of heterosexual society. These queer space(s) allow heterosexuality to exist within them while questioning the norms of gender identity and expression, gender roles within relationships, and family structures.

A heterotopian understanding of queer space(s) is also contingent on other certain rules and standards in order to exist.

Specifically, such space is dependent on visibility and permanence, the allowance of fluid identities and possible lives, and claims of territory.15 Such a counter-arrangement of space allows for the critique of broader society, while still protecting those within

50

the community. It is the creation of a safe space for self exploration of one’s identity which is counter to that of a clearly defined world where there is one dominant sexuality and a defined gender binary. General society’s heteronormativiity is exposed and critiqued through confrontations with media representations of LGBT individuals, advertising, and public events such as pride parades.16 Although these images are sometimes stereotypical, they introduce the dominant society to queer individuals while still protecting them from being the focus of intense mob scrutiny.

The neighborhood and community face similar critiques through the establishment of LGBT businesses, cultural customs, and political organization.17 At this level, those outside of the queer community have now entered a physical space where they are no longer the dominant force, further

CAN I EXCHANGE THIS?

Opaque Layer Model RESIDENCES

INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS

SLANG bear ftm

HEY GURL, HEY!

fem butch

family

SLORE

ballTOP twink shade BOTTOM FLOSSY lavender QUEEN tearoom

bareback trick fruit fly dutch boy

FAGHAG

party mtf

drag woof john otter

breeder

protecting those in the community while allowing access to a richer understanding to outsiders. Intimate relationships, verbal slang, and the home confront individuals understanding of heteronormativity and queer space(s). This final level serves as the safest place for the most marginalized and only the most comfortable outsiders are welcome. Together, these layers of understanding and critique allow only those who are willing to follow the rules of the dominant LGBT culture of queer space to participate in its formation.

Gay Multidimensionality and Queer Space(s) Members of the LGBT community face many of the same challenges society faces when it comes to the very multidimensional nature of its members. Homosexuality and gay, lesbian, and bisexual identities have

been documented in all parts of the world.18 Therefore, members of the community come from a wide variety of cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Frequently, such diversity and intersectionality creates disputes which are often centered on the assimilationist versus liberationist politics. Assimilationists wish to follow the norms of society and subscribe to the desires of heteronormativity; whereas, the liberationist wishes to free all people via finding the homosexual in everyone.19 These communities are frequently separated by class and geography.

Spatial segregation creates serious barriers for the LGBT community to achieve political and social goals. One major example of such an obstacle is gay ghettoization; where a highly concentrated LGBT neighborhood creates barriers to challenging heteronormativity in other everyday spaces.20 This isolation hinders the ability of the community to build political power outside of the localized level.

Furthermore, the stereotyping of gay identities, along with the commodification of the gay lifestyle as chic and cosmopolitan has created a situation in which gay public spaces are threatened by heterosexual colonization to the point that there is no longer safety provided by its previously private identity.21 The loss of privacy then challenges the realities of the queer community in queer space(s), neither reflecting the intersectionality or multidimensional qualities of the community. This marginalization prevents

DICHOTOMY 17

non-normative people from maintaining fluid identities and being able to live their lives in the safe environment, which is a requirement of a true heterotopia.

Based on the concepts of intersectionality, heterotopias, and liberationist ideology, queering space(s), should be achieved by a much more broad, subtle, and socially just

way. In order to achieve this goal, queer must be understood as a more complex term than merely an umbrella for the vast LGBT community. Instead, from the literary world, queer is, “the open mesh of possibilities, gaps, overlaps, dissonances and resonances, lapses and excesses of meaning when the constituent elements of anyone’s gender, of anyone’s sexuality

STRAIGHT bros who have sex ACTING with bros 1.

TWINKS thin, young, and shallow

1.

BEARS, CHUBS, OTTERS focus on natural male figures and features

1.

LESBIAN SUBCULTURES lipstic, s&m, punk, mothers, focus on sexuality

1.

LEATHER AND S&M leather s&m bdsm, and sexual exploration

1.

FEMINIST LESBIAN feminist, androgenous appearance, anti-male domination

1.

CLONES hyper-masculine and hyper-sexual, parody of middle class men GAY anti-assimilationist, gay culture as source of pride

1.

based on pride, and assimilationist assperations

HOMOPHILE gay and lesbian, gender conformity, ‘middle class respectability ’, assimilationist

1.

SISSIES, FAGGOTS, + BULLDAGGERS Harlem Renaissance terms, same-sex desire, gender transgression HUSBANDS masculine queer navy members not ‘straight ’ QUEER more masculine, middle class, double-life

1.

1.

QUEER anti-assimilationist, in-your-face action via ACT-UP

1.

1.

POGUES TWO WAY ARTISTS terms based on + sexual act preferences 1.

FAIRY same-sex choice, female pronouns, effeminancy 1900

1910

1920

1930

1.

Kinsey WWII reports 1941-45 1948-53 1940 1950

stonewall 1969 1970 1960

AIDS 1980s 1980

1990

lawrence v texas 2003 2000

2010

Timeline of queer identities illustrating the historically strong multidimensionality of the community, as well as the current proliferation of identities.

52

1

CAN I EXCHANGE THIS?

aren’t made or can’t be made to signify monolithically.”22 This notion of queer does not limit it to sexuality or cultural norms of identity, but instead to the larger question of what it means to be sexual and an individual. Spatially, this meaning of queer cannot be interpreted to represent bold visual gestures that make queer space(s) completely and totally different from those that are not; instead it is in the

details of the space. It is not the rainbow flag, but instead the function of public and private spaces. Questioning such space’s normative design elements, boundaries, and functions, may create spaces that are more flexible, fluid and contingent. Thus, validating the theatrical nature of queer space(s) by allowing individuals to further utilize space(s) as a stage for their lives and identities.

NOT

XX XY

YOU ARE WHICH? NOT

Your Partner? First Check them through steps 1-3, then determine if you have opposite roles, a masculine, and feminine member.

s? her y ot NOT db

gay couple

Procreation -For those whom are heterosexual

are

you

NOT

p

[

straight couple

[

[

How

ive erce

lesbian couple

Too Feminine

Too Masculine

WHAT IS QUEER? Queer is when you don’t fit any of the examples of the presented model.

It is “the open mesh of possibilities, gaps, overlaps, dissonances and resonances, lapses and excesses of meaning when the constituent elements of anyone’s gender of anyone’s sexuality aren’t made or CANT BE made to signify monolithically” Most of all Queer is a user determined identity.

Diagram defining queer

Model Based on “Queer and Now” from the book Tendencies by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick

DICHOTOMY 17

A critique of public and private spaces should be explored at the level of the urban and the architectural scale. At the urban scale, a primary focus should be on the neighborhood and its relationship to the street. Historically, the street has been a critical space of inhabitation for queer populations. However, due to the heteronormative dominant culture’s control of the city, the street may have never fully developed in its counter-arrangement of space, even in neighborhoods with large queer populations. Thus, a focus on the design of the neighborhood and street, anchored by architectural elements, is a critical part of the process of understanding the potential of queer space(s). In order to achieve the most fully developed understanding of queer spaces(s); designing at this scale should work with a multitude of possibilities and solutions.

Conclusion The process of exploring queering space(s) at the urban, neighborhood, and street scale, is to explore the lenses in which the profession of architecture works with space and thus societies. It is imperative that architecture begin to interface with the wide variety of social justice issues that affect people and the spaces in which they live. Architecture is not, and should not be a profession which is insular in its nature of practice. The profession must be willing to interface more with concepts from sociology, anthropology, and philosophy. Failure to explore new and varied lenses from which to study space will only further limit architecture’s ability to connect all people. The profession, if it continues on its current path of the unquestioned design cannon, will only face further obsolescence. Further exploration of both the queer community from the lenses of intersectionality and heterotopias is required, as are similar studies dealing with other minority communities. It is no longer acceptable to leave unquestioned the conventional understandings of spaces at any scale, from architecture to urban design.

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CAN I EXCHANGE THIS?

Bibliography 1 Frey, William, Berube, Alan, Singer, Audrey, and Wilson, Jill. Getting Current: Recent Demographic Trends in Metropolitan America. Rep. Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institution, Metropolitan Policy Program. 2009. Online.

2 Committee on Appropriations, Trends in Family Composition, 109th Cong. (2006) (Testimony of Ron Haskins, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution) Online.

3 Gates, Gary, and Ost, Jason. The Gay and Lesbian Atlas. Washington D.C.: The Urban Institute Press, 2004. Print.

4 “Diversity Within the AIA.” AIA.org. The American Institute of Architects, 1 Nov. 2010. Web. 19 Feb 2011.

5-15-16-17 Cottrill, J. “Queering Architecture: Possibilities of Space(s).” Eds. Cheng, Renne, and Tripeny, Patrick, J. Getting Real: Design Ethos Now: Papers from the 94th Annual Meeting of the ASCA. Salt Lake City, and Washington D.C.: Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture Press, 2006. Print.

6 Till, Jeremy. Architecture Depends. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2009. Print.

7-9 Young, Iris Marion. Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990. Print.

8 Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge, 2000. Print.

10-13-18-19 Taylor, Verta, Kaminski, Elizabeth, and Dugan Kimberly. “From the Bowery to the Castro: Communities, Identities, and Movements.” Eds. Richardson, Diane, and Seidman, Steven. Handbook of Lesbian and Gay Studies. London, Thousand Oaks, and New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2002. Print.

11 Valentine, Gill. “Queer Bodies and the Production of Space.” Eds. Richardson, Diane, and Seidman, Steven. Handbook of Lesbian and Gay Studies. London, Thousand Oaks, and New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2002. Print.

12 Castells, Manuel. The City and the Grassroots: A Cross-Cultural Theory of Urban Social Movements. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,1983. Print.

14 Foucault, Michel. “Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias.” Eds. Leach, Neil. Rethinking Architecture; a Reader in Cultural Theory. London and New York: Routledge, 1997. Print.

20-21 Valentine, Gill. “Queer Bodies and the Production of Space.” Eds. Richardson, Diane, and Seidman, Steven. Handbook of Lesbian and Gay Studies. London, Thousand Oaks, and New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2002. Print.

22 Kosofsky, Eve Sedgwick. “Queer and Now.” Tendencies. Durham: Duke University Press, 1993. Print.

DICHOTOMY 17

Jake Lyon:

The Reactive City

Jake Lyon grew up in West Michigan with a general aversion to cities and large crowds. Thanks to an interest in the built environment, Jake soon found his way to Detroit to study architecture at the University of Detroit Mercy. After three years of studying the art and science of buildings, the desire to impact greater individual change in communities led him to pursue a second masters degree in Community Development. After six years of training, Jake now considers himself more of an urbanist and sometimes plans events in hopes of drawing a large crowd.

001 008 020 034 048 062 076 090 104 118 132 146 160 174 188 202 216

002 003 004 005 006 007 009 010 012 014 016 018 022 024 026 028 030 032 036 038 040 042 044 046 050 052 054 058 060 064 066 068 070 072 074 078 080 082 084 086 088 092 094 096 098 100 102 106 108 110 112 114 116 120 122 124 126 128 130 134 136 138 140 142 144 At the building scale, architects provide the service of reorganizing spatial relationships150 to meet the aesthetic of clients and158 end users.

148 152and functional 154needs156 This service requires feedback and sometimes participation by clients to ensure comprehensive projects. At an urban scale, there is an inadequate link between 162 164 166 168 170 172 the citizens and the architects, planners, developers, and officials who define a city’s design. The problem comes from an oversimplified and prescriptive process 176 178 180development 182 184 To186 of design and regulation regarding and redevelopment. pursue a reactive city is to seek an alternative, participatory path for American community design.

190 192 194 196 198 200 In the process of development as it exists today, the value of market demand is 204 206 208 210 212 214 often used as an excuse to support the low-density, automobile dependent sprawl 218 220 222 224 226 228

056

found across the United States. This process, however, is itself a manipulation of market preferences toward a homogenized mode of creating human environments.

In Jonathan Levine’s book Zoned Out, the culprits of this attack on urban form are not developers, but rather a system that favors only specific types of developments.

In a case study on Fruit Heights, Utah, Levine recounts one developer’s desire for an “alternative” development that is subsequently blocked by the city. Levine writes, “A passerby in Fruit Heights would observe a low-density single-family neighborhood, and might naturally assume that it arose because of market demand for housing of this type. Invisible to this observer would be the more compact and affordable neighborhood that the market would have provided for, but for municipal regulatory exclusion.”1 The systematic removal of market options relies on the lack of challenging the decentralization of cities and zoning’s standardized segregation of uses.

The events leading up to limitations on development were logical and well intentioned. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Industrial Revolution changed the urban landscape with new manufacturing technologies. As cities increased productivity, there was a vast migration to these urban areas to support the suddenly available and relatively well paid jobs. Although this re-conceptualization of labor and production would greatly benefit the economies of industrialized nations, such cities quickly became hotbeds for disease, poverty, and blight. For the sake of efficiency, industry was hardly concerned with evolving health issues, and there was little consideration for social or environmental viability while those in power had such economic benefit.

To address the issues of industrial cities, a sort of “prescriptive specification” zoning was created as a mechanism to protect every resident’s right to air and light, to minimize the health risks associated with the new state of cities. Unfortunately, this zoning also served to promote disassociated, standardized districts.

One major difficulty in the conceptualization of zoning is its inspiration in utopian theory. In 1898, Ebenezer Howard published his written work that would later be re-titled “Garden Cities of To-morrow,” which outlines an optimistic vision of slumless cities. Howard’s diagrammatic city separately identifies every use in the city. Industrial and unhealthy uses are set further from the more livable entertainment, employment, civic, living, and recreation areas. The application of the Garden City model to many United States cities combined with other forces

58

THE REACTIVE CITY

result in physical environments that are less dense and composed primarily of single use districts. Since the only space for this kind of development was outside central cities, and since local and national governments subsidized such expansion, suburbs grew to meet the market demand for city and slum alternatives.

Proponents of modern alternatives to zoning like Smart Growth and New Urbanism would have graphic design codes guide development of dense, walkable, mixed-use cities. These movements bring needed attention to design, but they still strongly tie to the Garden City’s Utopian ideal. As economist Jane Jacobs argued in The Life and Death of Great American Cities, “[Howard’s] aim was the creation of selfsufficient small towns, really very nice towns if you were docile and had no plans of your own and did not mind spending your life among others with no plans of

their own. As in all Utopias, the right to have plans of any significance belonged only to the planners in charge.”2 If the critique of zoning via Howard is the lack of freedom, the same logic must be applied to more ecologically friendly yet equally limiting contemporary urban theories. In these urban forms, the logic that prevails is still that all is not permissible unless it is deemed permissible.

There is an inherent freedom exhibited in older, “unplanned” cities which economist Jane Jacobs recognized when studying the nature of cities. Jacobs wrote that, “Intricate minglings of different uses are not a form of chaos. On the contrary, they represent a complex and highly developed form of order.”3 It is precisely this innate order that is lost in a system of organizing urban space in a way that ignores the need for personal choice and diversity.

Ebenezer Howard’s drawings of his “Garden Cities of To-morrow”.

DICHOTOMY 17

To be a “reactive city” is to place control more democratically in the hands of community members, taking unchecked power away from a system controlled almost exclusively by developers and urban planners and re-allowing the richness and complexity of controlled but natural city life. Design grows from addressing problems, and it is impossible to comprehensively understand problems within specific environments without having significant exchange with those who experience those environments every day. When keeping an open mind, all is permissible unless it is deemed not permissible.

Still, are there universal values to be supported, and who enforces new regulations?

Over the past century, modern thinking in urban design often supports the single genius and the immaculately rendered image of Utopia. Healthy individuals and communities do not develop in these preconceived snapshots of unattainable perfection. Systemic solutions can be found only in a process of inclusion and never as a definitive, singular act of design. Christopher Alexander, an urban formal theorist, wrote, “The task of creating wholeness in a city can only be dealt with as a process. It cannot be solved by design alone, but only when the process by which the city gets its form is fundamentally changed.”4 Architecture serves people’s need for buildings, and by valuing community input, cities can better serve the need for healthy urban neighborhoods filled with personality.

Residents have the local knowledge required to properly identify appropriate juxtapositions of various uses. In a reactive city, design and policy professionals and communities exchange their expertise to execute design in a comprehensive manner. Also, reactive city community design is not purely a physical concern; it is a dynamic systems approach to the sociology, ecology, and economy of neighborhoods. Healthy environments provide for all human needs and block detriments. Well informed physical design can support these relationships and encourage the ideology sustainability suggests. Without a process of inclusion, however, no such design will emerge.

A Community Process for Detroit Over the course of the past fifty years, race riots, bank redlining, racial exclusion policies, and the migration of industry has left a once booming center of urban living as an expansive city with pockets of good and bad neighborhoods. Those with resources maintain what they can, but in some cases, the policies of ownership allow too much of the neighborhood to fall through the gaps. These neighborhoods must be given power in deciding their own fates.

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THE REACTIVE CITY

Engaging the community is something more common in Detroit than most other urban areas. Due to its rough political and economic history, organizational changes have gradually shifted some responsibility from the centralized government to an intricate array of non-profits and other community groups throughout the region.

Though non-profits are in the position to better understand the needs of neighborhoods, they are not always given a voice in development decisions. The city government of Detroit is spread thin enough that groups of the least political consequence are also the least heard. These people are often the third of Detroit’s population in poverty, including 45.7% of children under the age of eighteen.5 Since a city-wide democratic system of neighborhood planning would be illogical, a more decentralized and responsive form of representation is needed. With such a strongly decentralized system of nonprofits already in the city, Detroit is a perfect testing ground for a community based urban development process.

For the sake of testing, one possible form of this type of process is proposed here. In this case, there are four steps to be taken by three major categories of participants. The steps, like the urban context they seek to improve, are ever changing and cyclical. Although the urban context is constantly in flux, these steps can be considered in the following sequence: The first step is to analyze the existing conditions of a neighborhood. Because each local culture will think about urban form and use differently, this paper is only suggesting one of many possible means of documenting a community’s present situation. Invariably, community members must themselves play an important part in collecting data. Intimate local knowledge of the neighborhood is unattainable otherwise. Community forums, interviews, and community involvement enhance professional observation to inform the conclusions that come later.

In the second step, the data collected is interpreted into a series of goals and rules to help guide future development. These proactive policies are meant to challenge standard land use and zoning, to generate diverse environments for diverse communities. The user-defined restrictions applied to the neighborhood helps define local identity and are not inherently correct or incorrect. In well-kept historic neighborhoods of Detroit like Indian Village or Boston-Edison, a more restrictive design would likely be appropriate. Less dense and poorly maintained

DICHOTOMY 17

communities in Detroit may alternatively take a more eclectic approach to urban expression and organization due to the lack of a definitive context.

The third step, decision making, takes place with input from every group of participants.

With ideas prepared, the city ensures proposed policies do not contradict any universal human rights. Debate must occur in an open forum and feedback from the community itself is encouraged as a means of refining policy and

62

educating the public. When final decisions are made, they are adopted with the understanding that as times change, so will policy.

The temporary decisions inform a general schematic design (step four) of the neighborhood that acts as both inspiration for design solutions and as a measuring stick for proactive policy. Design is carried out by professionals, but constant checks and input from the community continue throughout this step as well.

THE REACTIVE CITY

At this point in time, most development decisions are made by players outside the immediate community. Incorporating community members in a democratic process requires critically considering the adjustment of roles in the generation of urban form and the directives for design. In a reactive city, these relationships are best explained through the proposed responsibilities of a centralized city government, professionals, and the community.

This new process is collaborative and requires special attention to detail, which is not possible in a resource-scarce city like Detroit. For this reason, the process for this study incorporates the city government as enforcers of universal standards and moderators of debate. In some cases, the city may be more intimately involved where city-wide infrastructure like highways are involved. This kind of major thoroughfare and other large systems are to be maintained by the city but freely challenged by local communities.

Local professional groups like community development corporations (CDCs), which are already a strong force in Detroit, often serve the development needs of neighborhoods. Professionals such as urban planners, architects, and policy makers serve the several needs of a community such as defining proximities, form, and texture. Developers help manage the feasibility and realization of projects. Ultimately, professional participants are responsible for defining and accomplishing change. This also means amplifying the opinions and concerns of residents to ensure appropriate results that are in league with the guidelines and principles set forth by the community.

While many individual community members are an important part of the analysis and decision parts of the process, a smaller volunteer group of community members acting as a guidance committee participates in this process through every step. This committee should represent the diversity, concerns, and character within a neighborhood throughout the process.

Community Sketches To begin exploring community processes, an experimental group painting exercise entitled “Collaborative Utopia” attempted to initiate collaborative action given supplies and the verbal prompt, “Ideal Urban Condition of Detroit.” Architecture students, faculty, and staff contributed to an evolving whole and bonded a little in

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the process. After a certain amount of time, I stopped the process. A video of the experiment can be found at <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbz11lS-168>.

In this experiment with a collaborative design process, a few valuable issues were brought up.

First, that communication is vitally important. There were a few times people did not hear the prompt. In these moments, participants lacked a clear sense of direction for their input. Facilitation must communicate intentions and instructions well.

Another important lesson learned was that regulations are required to protect the input of individuals. The collaborative process does not need to be fully visible in the end, but moves that dominate the outcome restrict the impact earlier participants have in the results.

Finally and most importantly, discussions and observation lead to an understanding that stakeholdership in a final product is required to encourage positive and intentional participation. Without this stakeholdership, many of the painters did not work as diligently as they would if taking the final product home. Zoning and land use policy today does not generally involve stakeholdersâ&#x20AC;&#x201C; especially in forgotten neighborhoods of Detroit- and this is where the typical services of urban planning and design fail to produce appropriate physical environments for urban citizens.

During a second experiment, an â&#x20AC;&#x153;ideas charretteâ&#x20AC;? was organized to mimic community involvement in design and policy. Due to the nature of this process, it is vital to collaboratively work out key parts of the design. The community would uniquely act as a generator of knowledge and also a moderator of design.

The fruit of their labor in an academic exercise like this, however, is limited to hypothetical solutions and academic review. These are of no consequence to a community with real needs and thus preclude approaching the community for an extensive simulation of the process.

Constructive, participatory experiences were instead generated for participating students of policy, community and urban issues, and architectural design. The use of students raises an issue, though, which is the subsequent gap between actual

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community and a simulated substitute. To minimize the difference between students and community members, prompts based on resident interviews, observation, and media allowed students to role play during discussions. In this way, students are free to act on behalf of- but certainly not as- absent community members.

Students were divided into two teams and were given separate scenarios after introducing the process to date. These scenarios of existing and speculative neighborhood issues asked groups to consider policies that could protect the interests of community stakeholders. The schematic vision that resulted is somewhat diagrammatic, incorporating such goals as green manufacturing, urban agriculture, rehabilitation clinics, new residential units for diverse incomes, pocket parks, and deconstruction. The charrette started to form a dynamic consensus among participants similar to the democratic ideal of the reactive city. With time, investment, and energy, this process could use stakeholder participation to dramatically redefine Detroit communities.

There is a disparity in governments that cause a failure to serve the needs of all residents. Many Detroit neighborhoods have been left behind, and several minority and impoverished populations have been trapped in unhealthy environments.

Current policy allows the continuation of systemic repression and marginalization of communities by not giving them a voice in their own environment. The theories embodied in the Reactive City outline the means by which to approach re-development issues and have found some foundational strategies to build on. Ultimately, the Reactive City is about a participatory design process. It is about finding both the means and the meaning of design in the people a design is intended to serve. The architectural profession must recognize its call to service.

It is our responsibility to design environments that appropriately serve humanity, and I believe it is also our responsibility to challenge current barriers in policy in a culture that discourages and even restricts such design.

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Bibliography 1 Levine, Jonathan. Zoned out regulation, markets, and transportation-land-use choice.

Washington, DC: Resources for the Future, 2005. p 12-13 2 Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Random House, 2002. p 17.

3 Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Random House, 2002. p 222.

4 Alexander, Christopher, Hajo Neis, Artemis Anninou, and Ingrid King. A New Theory of Urban Design. New York: Oxford UP, 1987. p 3.

5 “Detroit city, Michigan- Selected Economic Characteristics: 2005-2007”. American Fact Finder. <http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/ADPTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=16000US2622000&qr_name=ACS_2007_3YR_G00_DP3YR&-ds_name=ACS_2007_3YR_G00_&-_lang=en&-_ ssee=on.> Retreived 24 Apr. 2009

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Brian Wisniewski: Situational Schooling

Brian Wisniewski is a senior undergrad architecture student at the University of Detroit Mercy â&#x20AC;&#x201C; School of Architecture, expecting to complete his M. Arch in 2012, potentially examining technological advancement and progress in his thesis. His educational passions include spatial phenomenology and personal empowerment. His possible career direction is on creative reintention and urban revitalization efforts within the City of Detroit. Outside of academics, he enjoys meeting people and experiencing culture and new walks of life. He has lived and studied in Japan and Poland, to accompany his native U.S., while traveling extensively to other major world cities and nations. If there is any chance to converse, he thoroughly enjoys every one.

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002 003 004 005 006 007 009 010 012 014 016 018 022 024 026 028 030 032 036 038 040 042 044 046 050 052 054 056 058 060 064 066 068 070 072 074 078 080 082 084 086 088 092 094 096 098 100 102 106 108 110 112 114 116 120 122 124 126 128 130 134 136 138 140 142 144 Interactions between people challenge predictably structured and systematic dialog, and at the same time promote freer, easier, more spontaneously thinking.

148 150 152 154 156honest158 At moments when we encounter other people, any side has the opportunity to unfold and showcase snippets of their knowledge accrued throughout life. These 162 164 166 168 170 172 situations dare participants to implement and test their adaptability and flexibility toward the goal of becoming better people.

176 178 180 182 184 186 Schools encourage direct interaction and communication. They intend to teach interpersonal lessons that194 books and grade-point averages cannot. 200 The more 190 192 196 198 proficient and actively involved an individual is in utilizing their communication skills to navigate situations, the greater the quality and meaningfulness the 204 206 208 210 212 214 knowledge extracted from a particular situation will have.

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However, it is when requirements, guidelines, and objectives are imposed that a more subjective, self-directed education becomes systematic and standard. Honest learning has lost much of its subjectivity and therefore has become an issue. We claim intentions to teach passion, individuality, and curiosity, yet more strongly reinforce conformity, externally-based esteem, and standardization.

Primarily due to technology’s growing power to dissolve the distances between people, the unique lessons that everyday encounters evoke are vanishing.

Digitalization and accessibility hold the most significant power over our means of exchanging data, infiltrating most aspects of our daily grind. Today we often find objection to digital influence or its reach a difficult task, for our docility during its growth surrendered humanity’s power.

Ease of accessibility has shifted the educational process from a self-guided and questioning basis to a system where importance is externally imposed and replicating work is preferred. Readily available screens prioritize information for us and, regardless of where we stand, the data is consistent. It destroys a place’s specialness if any location can satisfy the same needs and teach the same lessons.

Now may be the time to rebel from the self-induced overloads that disconnect us from our individual life’s education. In information’s rise to seemingly infinite accessibility and power, intimacy has been squandered. In breaking free, we can reclaim intimacy. The intimate use and transfer of meaningful knowledge will increase in quality. The teaching hierarchy will reflect the world outside its walls and will dynamically shift, with the most practiced individuals at optioning interaction routes facilitating the most engaging exchanges. A school designed as a blind map to facilitate engaging opportunistic situations yields maximum utility and gain of meaningful knowledge.

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Subjectivity vs. Objectivity This eidetic image combines fragments exploded several times of folds of perception (painted sensual site memories p. 72) together with photographs of objectively existing elements, defined by traced lines of a plan view of the site. During site visits, I attempted to focus away from the objectively existing and towards my other senses, while interpreting from visual traces of the physical site.

encounters trigger other perceptions. Our images and haptic interpretations mentally refold, refragment, and reconstruct differently every time as memories trigger reconnections of experiences.

Here, the subjective sense of knowledge is life-lasting and unable to be proven incorrect, regardless of how far technology and science â&#x20AC;&#x153;advanceâ&#x20AC;?.

Our minds are constantly re-constructing memory fragments that new experiences or situations unfold or overlap differently as we actively participate in the flow of life. Partial perceptions and sensual

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Folding + Fragmentation With a bandana over my eyes, I took large cloth sheets and folded them in patterns to depict what motion or form a sound, scent, speed, or pattern from my visits might resemble to a blind man. To keep record of each depiction, I painted the fold, before releasing it and moving on to the next perception. I organized them in rough coordination to where they occurred in the site, mapping my experience and memory together. The folds became representations of how people act; individuals as shattered strokes coming together and dispersing, leaving traces and gaps.

These folds represented the segments of my sensual perception on site. Once they become memory, they scatter into even more pieces. These pieces overlap and become re-folded into the next series of memories. The scattering releases a void that leaves future possibility open, while keeping the past visible. The folding becomes reactive, almost improvisational, yet more expressive and honest.

Individuals are also fragments of a population and progress and invest passion at varied levels in a multitude of disciplines. Preference is an independent human means of organizing importance determined by experiences, while passion is the manifestation of the preference. Greater passion comes with tighter intimacy.

Dynamic Hierarchy I then desaturated the painted fragments, enhancing details such as moisture and depth that showed where a loss of pigment changed the overall image depth. At this stage, the fragments of the desaturated paintings changed dominance, depth, and energy from their roles in the colored ones.

Pieces alternate dominance and subordination in different situations as they overlap or underlay and redefine.

Situational emergence or retreat illustrate that there is never a period of static hierarchy in society.

Individuals become stuck in one “role” and a current situation instead of preparing to react to upcoming situations. Groups swap members, shrink, and grow, only to reconvene elsewhere with new acquaintances eager to share their knowledge. Teachers can learn as much from students. Enthusiasm, innocence, curiosity, and whimsy, which many adults shrug as pure “child’s play”, can be just as important to enjoying life as matters of objective fact. Our own childhood is easily forgotten for its useful period has “long since passed”.

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DICHOTOMY 17

Mental Mapping In the studies on pages 75-77, there was a constant series of trigger points that had no set path to trigger the same order or the same result.

However, the path constructed a mapped space from the connections of the mind every time.

To recall our own memories, we must trace the sensual steps trekked from one moment to the next.

Our images and haptic interpretations mentally refold, re-fragment, and reconstruct differently every time as memories trigger reconnections to yet others. Taking the idea of painting my memory a step further, I began to question how an outsider might navigate another personâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s memory. Following triggers and potential paths, this grew to apply to knowledge, and then specifically to the project, learning and education.

Tracing someone elseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mind is even more complex, such as sifting through a room of Post-It notes. We can take every bit of data, organized in a structure we are blind to, and attempt to reconnect that personâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s experience. But those experiences are radically theirs. Losing a piece of information when it is all formatted the same becomes far too easy.

The internet is a vast system set up in this fashion.

We spend countless hours searching for objective data that cannot be discerned as important, unless otherwise highlighted by an instructor. Our daily reliance on data accessibility and desires for more machine-like abilities spreads humans extremely thin and locates us more in the flow of the system than outside as its creator.

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Bibliography Camus, Albert. “The Rebel”.

Corner, James. “Recovering Landscape: Essays in Contemporary Landscape Theory - Eidetic Operations”.

Deleuze, Gilles. “Postscript on Societies of Control”.

Foucault, Michel. “Discipline + Punish”.

Germana, Joseph. “Maslow’s Puzzle: A Reconfiguration”.

Noë, Alva. “Action and Perception”.

Racjhman, John. “Constructions”.

Virillio, Paul. “The Overexposed City”.

DICHOTOMY 17

Claudia Bernasconi: Architectural Mutism: The House, the Man, and the Metropolis

in the Theory and Architecture of Adolf Loos Claudia Bernasconi graduated with a Master of Architecture at the University of Roma Tre in Rome, Italy and completed a Post-professional Master in Design from the La Sapienza University in Rome, Italy. She is a registered architect in the European Union and is currently an Assistant Professor of Architecture at University of Detroit Mercy, where she teaches architectural design studio with emphasis on context sensitiveness and phenomenological approach to place and design, and graduate courses on analysis and representation of place and design. Her research interests reflect an interdisciplinary approach to the scholarly practice and include: Historical perspectives on architecture; interdisciplinary and cross-cultural teaching/learning; and environment perception research with focus on the urban landscape. Her work has been published in numerous conference proceedings and in several peer-reviewed journals. She has served as Co-editor for the Conference of Educators in Landscape Architecture from 2008 to 2010.

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003 004 005 006 007 010 012 014 016 018 024 026 028 030 032 038 040 042 044 046 052 054 056 058 060 066 068 070 072 074 080 082 084 086 088 092 094 096 098 100 102 106 108 110 112 114 116 120 122 124 126 128 130 134 136 138 140 142 144 148 150 152 154 156 158 This article will explore the relation between the theme of house in Loos’ 162 166 170 environment 172 architectural164 theory, and the psychological168 and physical metropolitan of the Vienna fin-de-siècle. The analysis of Loos’ theoretical approach, which was inexorably organized into 180 dialectical categories, such as private-interior/public176 178 182 184 186 exterior, house/monument, art/architecture, and metropolis/countryside, will reveal the complex and multifaceted antinomy between the spatial and emotional 190 192 194 196 198 200 richness of the Raumplan (i.e. interior space planning) and the mutism of exterior facades, where only materials, not decorations, are allowed to talk, as ornament is 204 206 210 214 rejected in an implosive act208 of silence. Essays and letters212

by Loos, written between 1897 and 1914, will be utilized to illustrate main concepts in Loos’ poetics.

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From the City to the Metropolis “The task of the modern architect is the metropolis” O. Wagner (Moderne Architektur, 1895) “…[Looshaus] is a building that can only exist in a metropolis” A. Loos (Heimatkunst, 1914) In “Notre-Dame de Paris” (1831) Victor Hugo includes a chapter entitled “A Bird’s Eye View of Paris”, in which he describes the various districts of the city and its architectural metamorphosis from century to century. Referring to the fifteenthcentury Paris he writes: “It was then not only a beautiful city, but a homogeneous one, an architectural and historical product of the Middle Ages - a chronicle in stone.”1 Later, referring to the then contemporary Paris he adds: “And if you would receive from the old city an impression which the modern one is quite incapable of giving, ascend on the morning […], at sunrise […] on Easter […] day. […] At first you hear only scattered tinklings from church to church, […]. Then, all of a sudden […] - behold, … a cloud of harmony. … All are confounded [the vibrations from the bells] in one magnificent concert. […] Yet that sea of harmony is no chaos. Wide and deep as it is, it has not lost its transparency.”2 For Victor Hugo, Paris is a stone chronicle, whose buildings are books conveying old thoughts; he feels he can understand it as a whole. Each building is a unique episode but speaks the same language, the language of the city and of its inhabitants.

We may define such a city as the city of social relationships and exchanges, which are hosted and promoted by the urban architectural apparatus. We may abstract the skeleton of such a city and call it Ersilia. In the book “Invisible Cities” Italo Calvino writes: “In Ersilia, to establish the relationships that sustain the city’s life, the inhabitants stretch strings from the corners of the houses, […] When the strings become so numerous that you can no longer pass among them, the inhabitants leave: the houses are dismantled; only the strings and their support remain. […] Thus traveling in the territory of Ersilia, you come upon the ruins of the abandoned cities […]: spiderwebs of intricate relationships seeking a form.”3 This relationship between the “architecture-book”, as expression of communal values, the city, and the individual, is the emblem of a psychological introspection, of a communal experience that can no longer take place in Loos’s fragmented and multi-faced Wien. The vibrant and liberal Vienna fin-de-siècle was at the same

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time the cause and the result of a new mass society, which would steadily lead to the “Civilisation machiniste” (Le Corbusier). Its urban environment was no longer the place for collective memory, for continuity with the historical traditions, but rather the place for events with no history and for irrational complexity. In Architecktur (1910), Loos refers to the city dweller as “rootless”, and as deprived of the confidence and interior balance characterizing the rational countryside dweller. It is important to remember that Loos operates in a time of crisis and profound change for the Viennese moral-aesthetic culture, a change that can be traced back to a new subjectivism generated by the intensity of the urban experience and the new social matrix (Schorske, 1981). It is in the light of this new subjectivism that the end of the nineteenth century crisis can be understood. The inherent existential anguish and isolation generated by the new accelerated urban environment, the metropolis, becomes the ideological basis for Expressionism.

The ever-changing dynamic urban environment of the metropolis implies a new individual freedom (Simmel, 1903) and “freedom from value” (Max Weber) affecting the whole system. As noted by Simmel, the psychological foundation of the city dweller is an intensified nervous experience, originating from a rapid uninterrupted sequence of impressions (Simmel, 1903). But while for Simmel, Wagner, Gropius and Behrens the metropolis can produce a new synthesis, for Loos the new Zeitgeist, the spirit of the times, necessarily implies a separation of languages, of art and craftsmanship, of interior spaces and exterior facades, a new tension between freedom and self-imposed limitations. The Großstädte, the metropolis, exists as a complex cluster of images and contradictions, of tradition and innovation, and consequently results in a global anonymity, an excess of noise and dissonant voices, an incomprehensible variety that becomes a colorless noise.

The concept of anonymity becomes central in Loos’ theory. The “anonymous” character of the metropolis is determined by a lack of qualities, on one hand, but on the other it becomes the mark of authentic modernity. For Loos, adhering to the principles of not drawing attention to oneself becomes a matter of moral and aesthetic fairness. In Architektur (1910), Loos asserts that the house must not stand out. Simplicity rather than decoration is on the track of modern development. He writes: “One thing I knew: to stay on the track of this development I had to become still more simple“. He continues adding: “I had to substitute the gold buttons with the black ones.”4 He asks “Who is dressed in a truly modern way?” and answers: The person that stands out the least. This passage contains another foundational concept in Loos’ theoretical approach to architecture: the correspondence

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between exterior appearance of people and of houses, and more broadly between architecture and tailoring, a correspondence that revolves around the theme of expression and its propriety within the modern context. Here, and even more in the approach to artistic expression, epitomized by decoration (of one’s body or thing, or of an architectural element or facade), we can trace similarities between Loos’ thought and Freud’s. As noted by Gravagnolo (1988) both men believe that civilization and modernity call for the repression of instincts.

The complexity of metropolis breaks the bound between urban space and place.

The increased physical and social dynamism of the new city generates the illusion of a new freedom, resulting in an absolute loss of place (place intended as the existential relationship of man with space). The space of the metropolis is infinite, abstract and measurable, and the place of gathering, of things and of man’s dwelling among them, is excluded from it. Loos reveals in his theory and works this contraposition between exterior intellectualized space and the possibility of creating a place for emotions in the interiors. The expression of the facade is reduced to the minimum, as the building can no longer speak. In Heimatkunst (1914) Loos writes: “The building should be mute, on the outside and reveal its wealth only to the inside.”5 In order to further explore Loos’ approach to the metropolis, it is important to refer to his American experience. His stay in the United States offered him an image of the modern city, and a new perspective on the building’s meaning within the metropolis, a meaning inevitably distant from those embodied by buildings in the old city. Although Sullivan’s skyscrapers become individuals in the metropolis, surrounded as they are by a mythical halo, like magnetic signposts in the crowd, (social only in the inside of their hall, a “city within city”), Loos sees in them not a search of embodiment of communal meanings and historical traces, but rather the innovative potential of the most advanced technology. He interprets the American world as a democratic reality dominated by technology and the poiein (the “making”), by craftsmen rather than architects in true continuity with the English spirit (Gravagnolo, 1988).

Within Loos’ interpretation of and reactions to the new metropolis we can trace all of the foundation themes of his poetics: anonymity (simplicity), introspection (mutism), craftsmanship (technique and materials versus artistic expression and decoration, and versus the confusion of architecture and art). All of these themes

ARCHITECTURAL MUTISM

find their justification in the need to answer a basic question, which we could summarize with: “How should one build and behave in modern times?” The question of modernity is therefore a pivotal element for Loos’ dichotomist system of thought.

Modern dichotomies: the refusal of synthesis “Consequently, I had to take up from the point at which the chain had been broken”.

Loos (Architektur, 1910) In Loos’s position the idea of progress-civilization-modernity cannot be separated from the idea of morality. Loos believed tradition was broken only by modern inventions. In Architektur (1910) he praises the great masters of the past describing them as architects in intimate connection with the spirit of their time. In his thought, placing one’s work in continuity with the past is central. As he noted in Meine bauschule (1913) (My School of Architecture) “The present is built on the past just as the past was built on the preceding times.”6 In history he can see the (social) principle of selectivity, simplification, and a gradual emancipation by ornament.

In his research he is guided by the conviction that ornament is no longer a natural product of civilization/evolution. In Ornament und verbrechen (1929) (Ornament and Crime) we find this important passage which uncovers the vivid aesthetic debate of the fin-de siècle Vienna: “It is easy to reconcile ourselves to the great damage and depredations the revival of ornament had done to our aesthetic development, since no one and nothing, not even the power of the state, can hold up the evolution of mankind. It can only be slowed down.”7 In Loos’ mind decoration is naturally destined to disappear. It is in tradition itself, and not in the break with the past, that Loos perceives that tendency towards simplification which is for him also a precise moral rule: to eliminate what is superfluous from modern architecture in order to recover the legitimating and non-randomness of architectural structural and spatial search. Ornament, and its nostalgic symbolic value, is rejected as not only superfluous but also as a waste of time and capital.

This idea of modernity distinguishes him from his contemporaries. He wrote: “Don’t be afraid of not being judged modern. Changes to the traditional building technique are justified only if they represent an improvement; in the opposite case follow tradition. For truth, even if centuries old, bears a closer tie with us than the lie walking at our side.”8 In a letter from 1910 Loos writes about the Looshaus in Michaelerplatz, Vienna. He tells us that he always deluded himself of solving

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problems in a path of continuity with the work of the old Viennese masters. This illusion, he continues, was confirmed by a remark from a contemporary “enemy” artist who mocked him by saying: “He wants to be a modern architect and builds a house like the old Viennese houses.”9 As noted by Gravagnolo (1988) this position on modernity constitutes an important conceptual fracture from the contemporary obsessive “anachronistic desire to reassemble the chattered codes into a new synthesis, […], defined as Nuzstil,” as Wagner himself defined it.10 Loos is against any impatience for novelty, any insistence in one direction on one central language, and against the “domineering” architect. Unlike Wagner, Loos “…roams the disillusioned labyrinth of history without the anxiety of those who are in search of compositional systems to repeat or architectural vocabularies to take back, but with the lucid persistence of someone looking for the thread.”11 This thread leads him to the baumeister, the craftsman, rather than to the architect. art/craftsmanship A rationalist and illuminist approach brings Loos to distinguish between a utilitarian sphere and a pleasure/artistic one. On one side Loos places the house, the artisan work, the useful, on the other the work of art, the monument. It is to the nineteenth century that we owe, in Loos’ words, the courage of a distinct separation between art and craftsmanship (Deutscher Werkbund, in Loos, 1999).

In Architektur (1910) he writes: “I tip-toed into workshops like a timid apprentice.

Respectful, I watched the man in the blue apron. And I begged him: let me into your secrets! For, shyly, a large part of artisan tradition is still hidden from the eyes of the architect.”12 And more: “The work of art is revolutionary, the house is conservative. The work of art indicates to humanity new ways; it thinks about the future. The house thinks about the present.”13 An even more radical statement is included in the subsequent Hands Off ! (1917) where we can read: “For me the conclusion was clear: if you want craftsmen in touch with times, if you want artifacts in the style of the times, poison the architects.”14 In the Secession he sees great superficiality and absence of morality, as he is against any autobiographical narcissism and free artistic creation in architecture. In fact, while art has no purpose, architecture is the fulfillment of (new) urban needs and houses are the most useful “things”. In Architektur (1910) we can find an excellent description of these convictions: “A work of art is born without there being any need for it: A house satisfies a need. A work of art is responsible to no one. A house to everyone;”15 and “Is a house beautiful? Yes, it is beautiful as the roses are beautiful, and the thistle, the horse and the cow.”16 In the practical spirit of

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craftsmanship and in the technical traditions and improvements Loos perceives the principle of utility, which is modern as it satisfies needs. In the same essay Loos asks: “[…] why do all architects, […] end up washing the soap? The peasant doesn’t do it. Not even the engineer […] He builds the roof. What kind of roof ? A beautiful or an ugly roof ? He doesn’t know. The roof.”17 In the same perspective he compares the Greeks, the British and the engineers and writes about ancient vases (Glas und ton, 1898): “But that would mean that these vases are ultimately just practical! And we always thought they were beautiful!”18 The random search for a new language is an immoral waste as no forms are more modern than others but those that derive from history’s slow selection. In fact “It is the business of our age to produce not a new chair, but the best chair.”19 exterior/interior In the face of a new economic urban social environment, one can react in two extreme opposite ways: on the one hand one can look for a new (or old) ordering principle, for coherence, or on the other one can acknowledge the impossibility of a new reductio ad unum. As noted by Gravagnolo (1988) the Werkbund and the Bauhaus proposed art as freedom from modern (alienating) labour, a consoling evasive art, epitomized by the Darmstad experience. Klimt’s “Tragödie” shows us this mask, an escape into aestheticism looking for a free individuality in forgotten collective myths (Gravagnolo, 1988). Ornament itself is a mask of the interior conflicts generated by the new metropolis, and as such it appears as symbolic decoration in the Secession Pavilion.

Loos appears to be in an opposite position as he displays a naked mask rejecting any utopian synthesis. In his perspective ornament becomes an exhibited lack of self-control and self-confidence. Loos maintains this position not for economic reasons, though he insists on the waste implied by fictional decorative art, but for moral and historical reasons. He rigorously believes it is necessary to openly display the lack of qualities, the emptiness of the new urban experience and, conversely, to restrict conflict and expression to the intérieur sphere. In Ornament and Crime (1929) he wrote: “When men followed the herd they had to differentiate themselves through color, modern man uses his dress as a disguise [also translated with mask]. His sense of his own individuality is so immensely strong it can no longer be expressed in dress. Lack of ornamentation is a sign of intellectual [also translated with spiritual] strength.”20 Thus, in an anonymous environment, behaving like a Papuasian or a child is not modern. Modern man follows a

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tradition that progressively takes him from materiality (and decoration) to a more abstract spirituality (and morality). But this requires a disillusion and a disenchanted attitude towards the possibility of finding a refuge in the unrestrained expression of oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own creativity.

Loos does not want to conceal anything, he allows no distractions, in the Latin sense of distrahere, i.e. to divert from a direction, from a line of thought, from the categorical question posed by the new city; he strives to react and act upon the changes of the modern metropolis by means of technique and tradition. He does

Looshaus 1909-1911, Vienna, Austria, Photo: KAWAHARA tatsuya 2010

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not refuse ornament in itself, but the lack of detectable necessity and meaning often accompanying its form. It is in the light of this rejection of illusionary synthesis and distraction that the relationship of interior and exterior space of a building can be understood. As man must not dress in color but disguise and mask, so the house must employ a contracted expression/language towards the outside. Through an implosive action, the outside has lost all meaning (see Steiner House, 1910; Scheu House, 1912; Villa Moller, 1928 and Villa Müller, 1930); it is anonymous in the anonymous city. Dwelling can only happen within the enclosed space gathered by the thick, opaque walls of the house, which Loos excavates “from the inside”. Thus greater freedom, i.e. emancipation made possible by the Großstädte, must be matched by a greater self-control, as: “The people who are not free have policemen outside, those who are have them inside.”21

Above: Villa Müller 1930 Prague, Czech Republic, Photo: Public Domain Below: Werkbundsiedlung, 1930-1932 Vienna, Austria, Photo: KAWAHARA tatsuya 2010

While the exterior is mute and bare, the interior space is warm and articulated.

In Das prinzip der bekleidung (The principle of cladding, 1898) Loos writes: “The architect’s task is to create a warm and welcoming space.”22 He refers to carpets, in a true Semperian approach and describes architecture as the search for intimate and subjective spaces. In the same essay we can read: “[…] the architect first thinks of the effect he wishes to achieve, […]. This effect is the sensation that the space produces in the spectator.”23 And more in Das Andere –

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How we live (1903) Loos indulges in detailing the intimate relationship between the house and its dwellers. The house grows with them and they grow with their house. They can decorate it only by themselves, since that is the only way to make it their own.

The counterpart of a dumb exterior façade is a carefully planned interior space.

Loos’ Raumplan spurs from a skillful search for authentic intimate emotions.

Spatial continuity and variety (even in height) become the elements establishing rhythms of the interiors’ experience. In Meine baushule (1913) Loos explains that he teaches students to think in three dimensions – “to think in the cube”, and lists the foundational principles of his school: “Three things were taught: to build from inside to outside, history of art, and knowledge of materials.”24 That is to say intimate space, tradition and materials.

The language of materials On the outside only the language of materials is allowed, materials that require specific techniques and specific forms. The language therefore is a result of a coherent system of interdependent relations driven by necessity and forgivers of meaning. Materials have inherent qualities that should not be hidden by superimposed ornaments, as each material possesses its own formal language. In Regeln fur den, der in den Bergen baut (1913) Loos spurs his audience to seek to “uncover the causes which have given rise to that form” and goes on saying that: ”If progress in technique makes possible an improvement of form, it is always necessary to adopt that improvement.”25 Thus technique, materials and form are all connected and determine the way we should build, our language. In Das prinzip der bekleidung (1898) we can read: “Forms developed from implementation possibilities and building processes typical of each material, they have developed with materials and through materials.”26 Materials are connected to a particular place. In Architektur (1910) Loos refers to time, place, purpose, climate, and setting as differencing elements in architecture. In his writings he highlights that not only materials but also forms are related to places. As each city is different, it is necessary to use a different language, in order to make the building look as if it had always existed there. In Wien the right building materials are plaster and marble, as in the Looshaus in the Michaelerplatz, while in Paris for the Tzara house stone and plaster are used.

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In Die potemkinsche stadt (1898) Loos denounces falsification of materials as an immoral practice. He writes: “Anyone who tries to pass himself off as something better than he is, is a swindler; he deserves to be held in general contempt, even if no one has been harmed by him. But [what] if someone achieves this effect with false jewels and other imitations? […] There is only a small circle of people who would feel that in such a case an immoral act has occurred, that they have been swindled. But today it is not only by means of the fake watch chain, not only by the furnishing of one’s residence […], but also by one’s residence itself, […], that everyone wants to make himself out to be something more than he is.”26 Loos accuses contemporary architects of consciously overlooking the architectural character of cities. He abhors the city of “cloth and cardboard” (in Die potemkinsche stadt, 1898), which can be seen walking through the Ring in Vienna. He searches for the “Genius Loci” of place, as the memory of the city.

Looshaus It is in Looshaus (the Goldman & Salatsch building, built between 1909 and 1911 in Michaelerplatz, Vienna) that importance of materials, local forms and tradition in Loos’ poetics must come to terms with the modernity of the metropolis. As Loos himself asserts in Heimatkunst (1914), Looshaus can “exist” only in the metropolis, it is not provincial, and his enemies must acknowledge it. This building in fact presents elements of history and local tradition, but also the metropolitan features of a language deprived of ornament. The building itself becomes a manifesto of the impossibility of reconciling man’s intimate sphere with any legitimate exterior expression. Not only are the interior and exterior aspects of the building separated but there is also no semantic correspondence between the marble “foundation” (wrapping the commercial ground floor and mezzanine), in which elements of symbolic mediation with the historical city are still visible, and the upper level, the house facies, bare, silent, geometric. The three main openings in the portico at the ground level contrast the gridded four-by-four-openings upper façade. Above, the lack of directionality and color of the sixteen carved windows gives an abstract and enigmatic appearance to the face of the building. The Looshaus façade, secretly paired in the inside with a careful study of space and light, represents the conscious separation between the new role that modern man must accept and perform in the metropolis, and the unchangeable archetypical urge for an intimate home, as the place for self-expression, an expression sheltered by the simplicity of necessary things, of material and spiritual needs.

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Silence Loos reacts to all conceptual fractures (i.e. the dichotomist opposition of interiors and exteriors, of arts and craftsmanship, of city and countryside) by searching for coherence, for ethical, even more than aesthetic, discipline. This is why Loos rather than referring to any traditional style, or any style at all, thinks in terms of techniques and discipline which he found in Roman architecture, as indicated in Architektur (1910): “From the Romans we have derived the technique of our thought and of our way of feeling. It is to the Romans we owe our social conscience and the discipline of our soul.”28 “Roman” in the mind of Loos exemplifies the idea of social relationships, of user-centered architecture, and the general ability to rationalize according to principles of function and use.

As noted by Gravagnolo (1988), expressionism arises from the recognition of a Kunstwollen (an artistic volition) inserted in the historical context. Every work of art is subjective and ephemeral in its temporality, though inspiring to be infinite.

The idea of style is connected with an ideology of reconciliation, of synthesis of art and craftsmanship, possible only in the historical city, and not in the new metropolis, as Loos’ denounces. Style concretizes as the transformation of materials aimed to satisfy an interior creative urge. In this sense we may interpret Loos’s nihilism as negation of a style, intended as an anti-synthetic, anti-expressive expression. In the metropolis, where social relationships have been interrupted, where the city as community is no longer visible, style can only be (as immoral as) a tattoo. In fact, as pointed out by Gravagnolo (1988), in Loos’ work there is no search for a common language connecting the different building experiences (Tzara House, 1926; Villa Moller, 1928; Khuner House, 1930; the Chicago Tribune Column, 1922). In these works the architecture reveals a multiplicity of linguistic expressions and contradictions.

Materials, and their embedded semantic qualities, become the counterpart of the rejected idea of style, as architectural mediation is eliminated and materials become self-referent entities. In Das prinzip der bekleidung (1898) Loos describes the language of materials, and the connection between materials, forms and techniques. The architect, Loos advocates, should organize forms and materials free from any stylistic ambitions. Gravagnolo brilliantly captures this aspect of Loos’s nihilism, by referring to the language of materials as “the only genuine grammar of architecture,”29 and comparing Loos’ minimalistic approach to the purity of Mies Van der Rohe’s work, as rigorous and equally focused on materials and their qualities.

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Towards the end of his activity, perhaps due also to the disappointment caused by the “Red Wien” experience (as suggested by Gravagnolo), Loos’ radicalism becomes more extreme, as more self-imposed limits emerge. In time, to the bareness of the facades of Loos’ buildings, succeed the silence and emptiness of interior spaces.

The once warm interior living spaces lose most of their “carpets”. The façade continues to reflect the metropolis’ nihilism, but now even the interior is bare, empty as seen in the Villa Moller (1928). The once user-originated architectural spaces now seem to ignore the dwellers, and much of their emotional quality, which had been at the core of Loos’ Raumplan theory, seems to have vanished.

The anonymous, chaotic metropolis has imposed its busy sounds. There is only room for silence and void.

It is by observing these interiors that we can understand how rigorous and uncompromised Loos’ refusal of synthesis (between dialectic categories) has become. No exchange can happen between art and craftsmanship, nor between free expression of individual creativity and moral rule, or in other words, between the three-dimensional and emotional space of the interiors and the twodimensional facade dominated by materials and bare surfaces. The nude facies of Loos’ buildings remind us of the insurmountable divide between one’s bustling social life in the big city, and the inescapable rigor of one’s intimate, private and moral life. The more the metropolis bewitches us, with ideas of speed, success, and interrelationships, the more we must remind ourselves of what is legitimate, just, useful, and meaningful; and more, we should not forget our isolation and fragility in spite of all the city illusions. True expression and communication can only happen within the protected and carpeted interiors. But even so, the more the metropolis advances, the more the rigor must increase. At last, mutism permeates the inner sanctum of the home, and Loos thoughts are Ins Leere gesprochen (Spoken into the Void).

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Cover Spread Photo: KAWAHARA tatsuya 2010 Bibliography 1-2 Hugo, V. The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, translated by Cobb, W.J. 1964, Signet Classics, NY, 2001, p.133, p. 136 3 Calvino, I., Invisible Cities, Harcourt, Orlando, 1974, p. 76.

4-13-15 Architettura, in Loos, A., Parole nel Vuoto, Adelphi, Milano, 1999, p. 251, p. 253, transl. author.

5 Arte Nazionale, in Loos, A., Parole nel Vuoto, Adelphi, Milano, 1999, p. 281, transl. author.

6-24 La Mia Scuola di Architettura, in Loos, A., Parole nel Vuoto, Adelphi, Milano, 1999, p.262, p. 263, transl. author.

7-20 Ornament and Crime, in Loos, A., Ornament and Crime – Selected Essays, Ariadne Press, California, 1998, p.169, p.175. As a note, the term mask is used (vs. disguise) and the term spiritual is used (vs. intellectual) in the translation from the original text, in Loos, A., Parole nel Vuoto, Adelphi, Milano, 1999, p.228, transl. author.

8-25 Regole per Chi Costruisce in Montagna, Loos, A., Parole nel Vuoto, Adelphi, Milano, 1999, p.272, transl. author.

9 Due Articoli e Una Lettera sulla Casa della Michaelerplatz, in Loos, A., Parole nel Vuoto, Adelphi, Milano, 1999, p.239, transl. author.

10-11-12-17-28-29 Gravagnolo, B, Adolf Loos: Theory and Works, Rizzoli, NY, 1988, p.35, p.48, p. 80.

14-16 Hands Off!, in Loos, A., Ornament and Crime – Selected Essays, Ariadne Press, California, 1998, p.180.

18 Glas und ton, Loos, A., Spoken Into the Void Collected Essays 1897-1900, MIT press, Massachusetts, 1982, p.35, 19 Review of the Arts and Crafts, Loos, A., Spoken Into the Void Collected Essays 1897-1900, MIT press, Massachusetts, 1982, p.104.

21 Risposte alle domande del pubblico, in Loos, A., Parole nel Vuoto, Adelphi, Milano, 1999, p.319, transl. author.

22-23-26 Il Principio del Rivestimento, in Loos, A., Parole nel Vuoto, Adelphi, Milano, 1999, p.79, p. 80, transl. author.

27 Potemkin City, in Loos, A., Spoken Into the Void Collected Essays 1897-1900, MIT press, Massachusetts, 1982, p.95.

References: Calvino, I., Invisible Cities, Harcourt, Orlando, 1974 Gravagnolo, B, Adolf Loos: Theory and Works, Rizzoli, NY, 1988 Schorske, C.E., Vienna fin-de-siècle: Politics and Culture, New York: Vintage Books, 1981 Simmel, G., The Metropolis and Mental Life, The Sociology of Georg Simmel’ New York:Free

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Press, 1976 (original title Die Großstadt und das Geistesleben, 1903) Loos, A., Ornament and Crime – Selected Essays, Ariadne Press, California, 1998 Loos, A., Parole nel Vuoto, Adelphi, Milano, 1999 Loos, A., Spoken Into the Void Collected Essays 1897-1900, MIT press, Massachusetts, 1982 Additional consulted books: Trevisol, R. Gli Architetti: Adolf Loos, Laterza, Roma, 1995 Denti, G, Adolf Loos, Architettura e Citta’, Allinea, Firenze, 1992 Amendolagine, F., Oikos da Loos a Wittgenstein, Officina, Roma, 1975 Cacciari, M., Adolf Loos e il suo Angelo, Electa, Milano, 1984 Tafuri, M., Dal Co, F., Architettura Contemporanea, Electa, Milano, 1998 Fanelli, G., Gargiani, R., Il Principio del Rivestimento, Laterza, Roma-Bari, 1994 Watkin, D., Storia dell’Architettura Occidentale, Zanichelli, Bologna, 1990

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Frank Fantauzzi & Charlie O’Geen:

760 Wagner

Frank Fantauzzi is currently Head and Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture, University of Manitoba. He received his degrees from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada and Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

He has taught in numerous programs in Canada, the United States, and Finland. His research focuses on the question of alternative forms of critical architectural practice.

Parallel to teaching, Fantauzzi is engaged in an active alternative practice, which began in 1989. His work is often collaborative and focuses on large scale installations and outdoor constructions. It has been exhibited and published internationally.

Fantauzzi’s work is multidisciplinary in nature, mixing art, architecture, cultural theory, and urban design. It probes the built environment to explore the cultural dimensions of society and the parallels between social and tectonic structures. He is a founding member of the Icebergproject Collaborative.

Charlie O’Geen received an M.Arch at SUNY Buffalo followed by another M.Arch at Cranbrook Academy of Art. Professionally, O’Geen has worked for the designbuild practices of architect Bradley Wales, William Massie at Big Belt Construction Management, and currently for Power House Productions in Detroit. His work investigates the exploitation of existing site conditions as formwork for buildings.

The work stands in opposition to conventional building practices which are materially consuming. Unconventionally, O’Geen’s work moves off paper and into full-scale reality and looks to expose the opportunities of existing material energy.

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002 003 004 005 006 007 009 010 012 014 016 018 022 024 026 028 030 032 036 038 040 042 044 046 050 052 054 056 058 060 064 066 068 070 072 074 078 080 082 084 086 088 092 096 098 100 102 106 108 110 112 114 116 120 122 124 126 128 130 134 136 138 140 142 144 148 150 152 154 156 158 Abandonment An abandoned masonry house, 760 Wagner Ave, was acquired before its planned 162 166 168 172 demolition. 164 Like most houses it had been repeatedly 170 renovated, added to, and reconfigured over its life. Like a 3-D palimpsest, it absorbed the lives and events of its many 178 occupants over180 the years. Buildings do that,184 naturally. So crowded, 176 182 186so haunted- is there a limit, how many houses co-exist in the single-family house?

190 192 194 196 198 200 Surprising how redundant the house is, both in nature (over time) and construction (‘dumb’ construction) - each layer seemingly necessary, yet provisional and 204 206 210 212 independent.

Does a house208 sense its own body?

Over time, no space left214 to breathe.

There is comfort in covering up, in redundancy, in forgetfulness, in anonymity.

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Memory Amnesia, what is the relationship of memory and the house? Does the house compensate, does it relieve/abdicate its inhabitants from the anxiety of keeping track? Like computers, so able to remember, so much memory, - that we are loosing that fundamental human nature, and ability. The house is synonymous with forgetting, with putting things away. Quiet and stalwart- the house is able to absorb everything, from the most innocuous to the most shocking events. It’s like a shroud, erasing while absorbing, absolving while condemning.

Masonry The Wagner house was really one room- a cinder-block box. The nature of masonry wall construction is that it incorporates countless structural corbelled arches, decadent, dumb. Each block in a wall is a constellation all its own. Masonry units absorb difference, over-structured by definition, they anticipate a range of general forces- yet always compressive!

Tension is an anathema for masonry. Each

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block, shoulder to shoulder with so many other soldiers, yet internalizing, redirecting, masking and thus disappearing it’s own lot, its own history.

There was a desire to clarify, to reduce, and to emancipate the masonry from the wall.

The work began by extracting as much excess material as possible from the four façades, to rely on the underpinning paradigm of overlapping masonry construction (two over one and one over two) and thereby making apparent the essential structural forces inherent in the building’s structural shell. Alternately, the blocks came “out-of ” the various walls each differently: many broken, others whole but fractured… many easily, others like removing teeth. Releasing latent material energy. Exchanging.

Too Much (Roof) Upon inspection we found that a scissor truss roof was erected over top of the original flat roof. The flat roof was a beast.

It was overbuilt with no signs of leaks. But what house has a flat roof ? Something is

760 WAGNER

missing, the apex of the house is not there; the house is decapitated.

Half Make a box (stacked blocks) and put a lid on it. Embed half the box in the earth.

Make a floor halfway up. Divide the top space in half to hold up the lid. Divide…. half. Divide…half. Divide…half.

What we did was simple; we kept dividing.

We removed blocks so that each façade was half solid, half void. We removed interior partitions so that the house was half masonry, half not. The work is an example of how a reductive process can reveal how to make more efficiently. The post clarification and expression of structure through editing helps to identify and question the tangle of redundant / over-structured systems of conventional construction.

Exchange A house is a container. The contained space is broken into smaller spaces by a series of flat planes. These flat planes are filled with latent material energy. This project engages un-building as a vehicle for exchange. The contained space switches from holding up the container to being hung by the container. Holding to hanging. By operating on the flat planes of the structure, a three dimensional space is revealed that is active, dynamic.

The scissor truss roof system was connected down into the original flat roof system making a hybrid roof. The main floor

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was cut away from the exterior walls and the load bearing partitions were removed. The floor was hung from the hybrid roof system to reveal the transfer of loading. The Wagner project attempts to separate and reorient the house as body though its parts.

No longer a heap, a muddy stack, a stack of forgetfulness.

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Tension Over time the house settles, its materials continually succumbing to gravity on their predestined way back down. The building now all compression - no balance. There was a desire to hold it up from its head, its body dangling. To shake weight, embodied weight, out of it or alternately to inflate

760 WAGNER

tension back into it. It’s the dignified thing to do. To stretch it back before laying it down.

Ironically the only new material brought to the project: 240 linear feet of ¼” steel cable. A clothes line for our empty (bodiless) clothes, a hangman’s rope lifeless without the dangling body. The Wagner project was a material and energy transfer.

Simply another passing but with a pause, a short delay- it’s the dignified thing to do.

Plumb The interconnected, redundant nature of the house’s construction, results in a type of overall settling (fracturing), its entire body its forced out of level, square, and plumb. By hanging the floor, it tends to plumb and level, true to gravity; once set and engaged, it mediates and registers.

Return home, go inside onto unstable ground, on ‘live’ ground (ironic). The project destabilized the relative relationship between inside and outside. In the process of entry your body refers to, alternately, the site, the outside as you enter (the interior swinging) and being inside where the building is a shell, a sky, a sea, hovering around the space of the stable plan (world floating).

Demolition Culture This project was executed just outside Detroit but has connections to the current demolition culture in Detroit. With Mayor Bing’s plan to eliminate 10,000 structures by the end of his term, there are many houses like 760 Wagner Avenue that are at the end of their lives. Before we let demolition crews fill local landfills with depleted houses, we should use these structures to learn through experimentation. Moreover, there must be a dignity to how we choose to bring a house to its end- its death.

We killed a building. We killed a body. We told the police (building department) beforehand. We told them how. We told them where. We told them who would do it. We told them why. The police gave us a signed, stamped document approving the act we were about to commit. All they said, with smiles on their faces, was to make it quick.

760 Wagner Avenue Bloomfield, Michigan December, 2008 - April, 2009

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To see the full animation of the floor in motion go to www.youtube.com/user/cjogeen and play the video entitled 760 Wagner Avenue.

Exchange: Detroit & Warsaw Amy Green Deines, Noah Resnick, Justyna Zdunek-Wielgołaska: As a graduate of the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Master’s of Architecture in 2000, Amy Green Deines has a diverse design background that builds on her academic training in industrial design and architecture. Amy is an Associate Professor at the University of Detroit Mercy, School of Architecture where she teaches Architectural Studios, Graphic Design, Interior Design, and Graduate Seminars. Ms. Deines has presented her work and lectured numerous times at various universities and conferences. Amy is a professional designer with experience in both the public and private sectors. She has been involved in numerous prototypical projects that have been awarded four United States Patents involving technology and customization. Amy is the cofounder of Awake by Design, an award winning multidisciplinary design + technology studio founded in 2007.

Noah Resnick teaches and practices in the city of Detroit, Michigan. He is a full-time professor of architecture at the University of Detroit Mercy, and a founding principal of uRbanDetail, a small research based architecture and urban design studio that operates under the interrelated concepts of the architectonics of multiple scales; the architect as urban collaborator; and the architect as community builder. Noah attended the Design and Architecture Senior High magnet school (D.A.S.H.) in Miami, Florida. He earned his BArch from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, and completed his Masters of Science in Architecture Studies (SMarchS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Justyna Zdunek-Wielgołaska, Ph. D., teaches at the Faculty of Architecture, Warsaw University of Technology, Poland. She got her master’s degree in Architecture and Urban Planning in 2002 and Ph.D. in 2010 (WUT). She was awarded a scholarship for young researchers granted by the Foundation for Polish Science (2008). As a Fulbright scholar, she conducted research at the University of California, Berkeley in 2004. She aims to reconcile her professional career with academic teaching and to continue research in the scope of urban planning.

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Since its formalization, many examples of architectural education have existed uncomfortably within the insular walls of the academy. Likewise, western architectural practice has yet to respond and react to real global issues. We need to situate the academy within fertile curriculums that look at the singular within a collective structure in new environments. One example worth noting is a curriculum that looks outside of itself, one that integrates foreign exchange programs within an existing curriculum to stretch the knowledge base of each student and faculty.

We argue that exchange programs placed within an architectural academic curriculum explore and support â&#x20AC;&#x153;contextâ&#x20AC;? awareness and understanding. Focusing on change and innovation as a key element of a successful design process, we

position this paper as evidence of the success of such programs within architectural education. Studying abroad gives students the insight to issues surrounding culture, socio-economic structures, urban patterns, demographics, and the overall experience of the city and its relevance on the surrounding communities and built environment. These explorations not only allow for a super-sized dose of culture shock but also bring out the desire and hunger to see outside of oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s context and environment. In the spirit of this issue of Dichotomy, entitled EXCHANGE, our desire as joint authors is to describe, exhibit, critique and observe the contribution that EXCHANGE has within our academic structure at the University of Detroit Mercy and the Warsaw University of Technology. The paper will look at the singular and the collective impact that exchange has on the institution of learning as it directly relates to architecture and urban design. In the end, we are confident that such programs of learning will leave an indelible mark on our students and faculty who engage in it. The ability to empathize and situate ideals within another context is a powerful act that directly shapes and molds the practice of architecture to the individual and the community.

For over thirty years, the University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture (UDM|SOA) has participated in an exchange program with the Warsaw University of Technology (WUT) Faculty of Architecture, which currently involves 12 students and a professor from each school for the entirety of a semester. Professor Emeritus Jerzy Staniszkis founded the exchange program in 1980, at the height of cold war relations. It is now regarded as the longest continuously running exchange between any American and Polish school. Our intent of this paper is to evaluate the recently completed 2010 exchange cycle and document the outcomes of the programâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s engagement of collaborative research amongst the Polish and American students and faculty. This particular cycle marked both the 30th anniversary of the program as well as the beginning of a newly signed 10-year agreement, which will insure the programs continuation for at least another decade. As such, the 2010 cycle was viewed as a prototype for the methods and opportunities that the exchange will foster in future years. This article will survey the products, such as exhibitions and design proposals produced within the framework of the Detroit Warsaw Exchange, that allowed the participating faculty to use the resources from both academies to conduct a rigorous comparative urban and architectural analysis between various European cities and Detroit. The outcomes of this research represent a set of urban tactics, design strategies, and criteria for various urban interventions that can be implemented in Detroit as well as other American

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cities. Additionally, the students, through their studio design projects, tested these interventions and the subsequent urban theories developed. The research focused on the integration of the intellectual, spiritual, ethical and social development of Detroit in relation to its built urban environment.

Pedagogy of the 2010 exchange Through the methods of comparative urban analyses of multiple European cities and post-industrial cities within the U.S. including Detroit, we intended to identify and test various methodologies with which to improve the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s built environment.

The University of Detroit Mercy is sited in Northwest Detroit amongst a lowincome residential area. Detroit at large is a shrinking city in need of new economies and new strategies. Detroit, like most postindustrial cities, is currently attempting to redefine itself and is looking to the youth and recent graduates of local academic institutions to stay, invest, and take ownership of her future. Detroitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s broken urban fabric has been years in the making in contrast to Warsawâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s demise in which the fabric was torn more immediately during World War II. Each place uniquely shares similar traits and can learn from each other through programs such as the Detroit -Warsaw exchange.

The architectural project designed by the faculty attempted to stretch and expand on these comparisons and occasionally

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evaluate other European and American PostIndustrial cities. Using different modes of notation, faculty and students documented a number of recent architectural projects within the urban environment of specific cities to study the measure of architecture on its contemporary urban experience. The analysis and documentation of such projects authored by different urban designers and architects showed the complexities of the architectural process as it relates to the larger scale of urban design. The framework that guided the research was consistent with the Universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mission with regards to the intellectual, spiritual, ethical, and social development of the urban community. The ability for this research to be translated and utilized was the ultimate goal of the professors in that the information gathered abroad, and then interpreted within Detroitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s landscape, has the potential to become a design criteria that practitioners and students alike can employ as a way of viewing theory as practice - curiosity as optimism - for re-shaping our American post-industrial cities.

While cities are an ancient and integral component of human civilization, the study of how to actively control and predict the form of the urban environment was not recognized until the early Twentieth century. The extremely complex nature of cities throughout history has lead to a somewhat ambiguous approach to achieving normative theories about them.

As such, Urbanism is a loosely defined

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and multifaceted discipline encompassing elements from the fields of architecture, urban design, urban planning, urban ecology, urban geography, and landscape design, as well as economics, psychology and sociology. It deals primarily with the design of cities and the spatial and temporal pattern of human activity within them.

Much like the urban conditions themselves, the language, tools, and methodologies of Urbanism are constantly changing. Our research seeks to identify a universal body of knowledge within this field, which pertains specifically to cities that suffer from global post-industrial urban conditions.

It is our belief that by inextricably tying architectural education to the social, political, physical and environmental circumstances surrounding us, we will produce better design students who are more prepared to engage these influences in a meaningful way. Architectural education does not need to be seen as an overloaded multidisciplinary discourse, but there should be emphasis placed on the relevance of a designer that is equipped with experience and confidence. In the end, the examples presented within the Warsaw / Detroit exchange program responded directly to an outside force, this force being a relevant voice of an international community.

This model has an outpouring of thought provoking design solutions that are rooted in the spirit of relevance and consideration, offering the student an unexpected reputation for contributing to something real. We proposed â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Exchange.â&#x20AC;?

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The Project The primary studio methodology of the exchange focused on comparative urban analysis, in which similar or relevant urban conditions in multiple cities were rigorously examined via photographic and video documentation, hand and computer drawing and modeling, historic research, and design exercises. Subsequent research moved to the scale of selected architectural projects that examined, through the lens of the urban condition, how architecture has direct implications on the urban fabric.

Students tested the theory that a building has the potential to act as a node of economic, intellectual, and cultural development.

By situating this research objective within the framework of the Warsaw exchange program, students were afforded direct accessibility to the European cities of interest (such as: Milan, Berlin, Prague, Turin), as well as the collaborations and resources made available by our colleagues

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within the WUT Faculty of Architecture.

Most of this work took place within the architecture studios and seminars and were used as the foundation of our pedagogic imperative to the students, in which we approached design as a fundamental form of research.

The Architecture studio simultaneously researched and developed projects at two scales: one at the scale of a building and the other at the scale of the entire metropolitan area. The design projects focused on proposals for new uses of postindustrial sites with an understanding that the design propositions are part of a series of interconnected networks. The studio work was undertaken in mixed groups and structured so that cross-cultural problem solving would address the complexities of investigations at the urban scale, while individual expressions and experimentation would be nurtured at the architectural scale.

It was also entirely co-taught by the Polish

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and American faculty, allowing this cross-culturalism to enhance the design criticism and evaluation as well.

A series of projects were formulated to test the methodology of comparative urban analysis, using Warsaw and Detroit as the cities under investigation.

An initial two-week design investigation located in Detroit served to introduce the Polish students to the urban conditions that would be addressed in the subsequent Warsaw site, while also allowing the American students to experiment with the standard European strategies. The urban design concept was to be radical or utopian, and address the potential (or lack thereof) for architecture to engage the urban scale. The site was situated in a former industrial zone on the riverfront of Detroit’s near-east-side, less than one mile from the downtown Central Business District. The predominant urban features – other than the large tracts of vacant land – were a collection of vacant 19th century brick factory and warehouse buildings and a historic drydock and marina along the river. The site was adjacent to the Detroit Riverwalk, which serves to connect a series of waterfront parks, as well as the entrance to the newly constructed Dequindre Cut – a former sub-grade rail corridor that has been converted into a pedestrian/bike path. The Detroit projects remained conceptual and served as an informative/experimental guide for the more articulated Warsaw sited project. The design schemes focused on issues such as sustainable transit connectivity via rail, road, and water routes, radical re-use of vacant industrial centers, and appropriate densities for the development of vacant land.

With these concepts under examination, the students began to research the relevance to a similar condition within the city of Warsaw. A large urban parcel in the formerly industrial Wola district was identified as the site for the students’ primary investigations. Many of the post-industrial challenges inherent in Detroit – such as building and land vacancy, inadequate public transportation, and industrial heritage – manifested themselves in this area. The site consisted of an entire city block – also less than one mile from the downtown CBD – and was the location of a former brewery, which was in operation for many years before its closure and partial demolition in the late 1990’s.

In addition to their consideration of the physical fabric, the students searched for similarities and discrepancies between the two sites, analyzing among other things,

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city policies concerning management of postindustrial areas, inhabitants’ different attitudes to the present state of investment, and possible future changes of such areas.

Planning strategies including transit connections, massing studies, programming, and zoning were also investigated as the focus of the American students’ urbanism seminar. This seminar, entitled ‘Return to the City’, was taught by Polish faculty and served as a companion to the primary design studio.

Within the design studio, student groups had to simultaneously create the specific building programs of their individual architectural interventions as well as the public spaces at the city scale.

A crucial component of the project was that all the groups focused on creating an animated public space for both the users of the newly designed buildings and visitors to the site. While many of the Warsaw students viewed the openness of the site to be liberating, the Detroit students brought a sense of urgency for maintaining the dense urban fabric, as a reaction to their familiarities with the tendencies for vacant sites in their own city to remain fallow.

In most situations, the students found a balance between both the urgency and the playfulness necessitated by this condition in their integration of public green spaces to occupy some of the urban void left behind by the demolition of the historic brewery.

Nature was proclaimed an indispensable part of city life, and reintroduced to the

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landscape with various architectonic results. For each group, the core of the site was the focal space that aimed to encourage people from the street to come in and linger. The projects sought to become an inherent part of ecological and spatial policy focusing on improving the living condition for Warsawâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s inhabitants.

In all of the projects, the student groups desired to return urban activities and functions to a post-industrial vacant site, and thus return that site to the community.

This challenge continued with the exchange program as it cycled the following semester back to Detroit.

In the Warsaw section of the exchange, the Polish and American students were concentrated into one studio, making group work a successful endeavor. Once back in Detroit, however, the participants in the exchange program are dispersed throughout the school of architecture. The comparative urban analysis research and strategies implemented in the Warsaw studio had to be explored on an individual basis for each student. Once here, the Polish students were absorbed in both the American studio culture as well as the same urban conditions of Detroit that they spent the previous semester researching. They were encouraged to juxtapose their European understanding of dense urbanity into the post-industrial Detroit fabric.

The projects completed by the Polish students in Detroit typifies both their struggle to comprehend the shrinking city and their enthusiasm for making profound urban explorations that were not possible or appropriate back in Europe.

Exchange cycle Throughout the years, the Exchange has been based on the assumption that each school should maintain its individuality - immersing the participating students and faculty into a foreign condition while challenging them to sustain their collective identity. While studying at Warsaw Faculty of Architecture, students are taught how to design architecture following the Polish academic method, and at UDM School of Architecture, in the American manner. The idea of learning, teaching, exploring and experiencing alternative or diverging views of architecture and urbanism widens the perspectives for future decisions in the studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; professional life.

As is the tradition, an exhibition of the outcomes of the most recent exchange was organized in the Exhibition Pavilion at the Faculty of Architecture WUT (25-28 of May, 2010). Dean Stefan Wrona opened the celebration by thanking

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all of the students and teachers for their active and creative input into the international program. The studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; architectural, interior and urban design work was displayed, as well as drawings and paintings that were made during watercolor classes under the supervision of Ludomir Slupeczanski (who has been involved in the exchange program for over 25 years). The Architectural Design Studio was based on bilateral cooperation. By gathering all of the projects, it was possible to recognize how the design process fostered interconnections between the architectural and urban scales within both cultures. This was especially clear at the master plan level, which proved the most challenging work for the groups, necessitating cross-cultural dialogue to find the proper design compromises to fit the whole scenario for the site.

The exhibition revealed the amount of effort that was put forth by the students throughout the entire semester in Warsaw. The design quality presented by American and Polish students was at a comparable level, proving that the collaboration was enriching for both sides.

To continue the tradition, the same exhibition was shown in the following semester at UDM School of Architecture (October 25-29, 2010). This time, Stephen Vogel, Dean of SOA UDM, officially opened the exhibition. Together with Polish food, music and photographs (taken by American students while traveling across Europe and Poland), guests experienced a little Polish culture as they viewed the past semesterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s outcomes. The goal was not only to showcase the work, but also to encourage new students to participate in the exchange program in the future.

To finally complete the 2010 exchange cycle, there was another exhibition organized at the Faculty of Architecture upon the Polish groups return from Detroit. Photographs taken by Polish students during their sojourn in the US were presented in the common space at school. The aim was to publicize and promote numerous possibilities of the exchange, with the main section of the exhibit focusing on American architecture, and the second one concentrating on social life of students in the US. There are many opportunities to study abroad nowadays. Nevertheless, the UDM School of Architecture / Warsaw Faculty of Architecture exchange is still very attractive for students. With its over 30 year long history the program has successfully fostered its unique character, while maintaining its academic rigor and cultural significance.

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The following students participated in the 2010 exchange cycle and examples of their work are displayed throughout this article.

UDM SOA students Alena Bower Benjamin Castiglione Sean Gross Nathan Jenkins Kyle Johnson Vince Mattina Drew McNamara Emily Scrimger Katerina Smart Rebecca Willis Brian Wisniewski Kaitlynn Young WUT students Bart Brzost Bartek Bukowski Mateusz Ce Agnieszka Cichecka Justyna Czubaszek Karolina Dabrowska Katarzyna Krawczyk Natalia Linek Piotr Łuszczyński Rafal Mackowiak Ania Majewska Łukasz Pawlicki Natalia Szawaryn Agata Wierzbicka

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Ania Jaworska:

Confetti Tower Ania Jaworska is an architectural designer, artist and educator. She received her Masters of Architecture from Cracow University of Technology in Poland, as well as the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. She explores the connection between architecture and art in order to develop new means of architectural practice. Her large scale structures are very simple in appearance yet complex in content and meaning. Her work explores playful and iconic qualities through the use of proportion, form, material and color as well as conceptual, historic and cultural references.

Her intent is to create architecture that produces a memorable emotion through work that socially engages the public. She was part of the “Fabrications” exhibition and symposium at the Elaine L. Jacob Gallery in Detroit, and group exhibition at the WUHo Gallery in Los Angeles, entitled 13.3%, “an exasperated reply to those who say: ‘there are no women making architecture.’”

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“Confetti Tower” is a simple, sixteen foot tall structure that blows confetti when activated. This project was completed in 2009 and was presented during two exhibitions. The context in which the tower was exhibited determined the public’s interaction with it, which further extended the social value of the project.

My projects are simple in appearance, yet complex in content and meaning. The work explores playful and iconic qualities through the use of proportion, form, material and color as well as conceptual, historic and cultural references. Natural and imaginative elements inform the structure’s shape in order to create an unexpected yet familiar experience for the viewers. I believe that the architecture that we remember is attributed to the emotion associated or conjured by a place or building. These feelings and memories are of detail, color, smell, specific sounds associated with a building, as well as of the people that inhabit a certain

Technical Information The project was 16’ high and 4’ by 4’ wide, with 4 columns that were each 1’ by 1’ wide and 8’ tall. The reason for the dimensions was a standard 4’ x 8’ size of a plywood sheet, from which the structure was constructed, which contributed to minimizing waist of material and cost of the project.

30 sheets of plywood were used, which were cut by a CNC machine and faceted together like puzzle elements with screws, bolts and glue. The plywood was waterproofed and painted with white exterior paint that was sanded and reapplied several times giving a very smooth surface.

A steel frame provided strength at each column and allowed for easy installation into the ground. The structure was bolted to the pavement using self expanding anchors.

The confetti blowing machine was stored inside the soundproofed structure. Easy access to the mechanism was assured through the removable back panels. The confetti was made of biodegradable tissue that has been treated to be flame resistant and was manufactured from sources using approximately 90% recycled content.

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environment, along with the history and cultural practice related to the location. I have come to the conclusion that the way I read surrounding architecture is based on its atmosphere as well as my emotional input.

For me architecture is a representation of life and culture. With my work, I aim to transform these encoded memories in order to produce a new experience and establish new metaphors. In this way my work becomes a personal and emotional exchange with the viewer, and this concept of social exchange is highlighted by the “Confetti Tower”, a structure that connects the public through playful interaction.

The simple form of the “Confetti Tower” is inspired by the shape of an industrial exhaust pipe. Instead of hiding it on the back of the building or on the roof, like exhaust pipes usually are, I wanted to expose it on the most prominent site, which is usually an entrance or foyer of a significant building.

Instead of blowing hot air the tower blows colorful confetti. I was interested in transforming the existing elements of the infrastructure and creating an iconic form that is unexpected and surprising for the viewer. It is the form that carries references, metaphors and conveys presence, life and emotion to the public. With this project I pursue playfulness and explore character; as a result the structure appears human-like and ready for motion. The pose it strikes politely welcomes the visitors, and when activated, a blast of confetti engages the public in celebration.

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“Confetti Tower” was exhibited in 2 different settings, which influenced the way it was activated. The first site was the peristyle of the Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. The reason for celebration was the 2009 Graduate Degree Exhibition of the Cranbrook Academy of Art, titled “Loose Canon”, and it was the first time this project was shown to the public. The Cranbrook grounds are isolated from the surrounding urban development, as a result only the people who planned to visit the museum had a chance to enjoy the project. During the exhibition, confetti was set to be blown at random intervals, or activated by the museum docents at specific times, which meant that a person had to be present at the right moment in order to experience the spectacle. In this setting the exchange between project and a person was limited to only a few occurrences, if any. The act of the confetti being blown could be seen only a few times a day, and consequently a person that witnessed the activated “Confetti Tower” was left with a sense of a rare astonishing occurrence.

The second site for the project, however, was a busy crossroad in front of the Fountain Street Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “Confetti Tower” was exhibited during the “2009 Art Prize” event, and the location, traffic intensity, air flow and visibility affected the amount, frequency and method of the confetti to be blown.

The characteristics of the site allowed spectators to become direct activators, and

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the tower responded to noise, touch and the amount of people standing in front of it, or passing under it. This project became very successful in the city environment where the surprise factor was amplified by random interactions with the public, who happened to be passing by. The frequency and amount of confetti being blown engaged more people in the celebration and interaction with the project and with each other. To even further expand this relation between the tower, confetti, site and spectator, I allowed myself to control the launching of the confetti through a remote controller whenever I felt it was the “right” time.

I was able to “trick” people and “play” with them, as they gathered in front of the tower, which magnified a sense of mystery and excitement. The results were comical, as people were actively trying to trigger the tower, by screaming and jumping in front of it, passing under it several times, touching or hugging the columns of the structure, or even kicking it. In order to try to figure out what makes the confetti blow, people were coming back several times to try new methods of activation, which sometimes left them with even more questions.

Based on the success of this interaction, I documented people’s reactions. I took photographs and videos of the visitors interacting with the tower, and became interested in having the visitors draw or write about their experience in order to learn more about this piece. The Fountain Street Church members helped me to organize a “Confetti Tower Painting Workshop”

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for young members of the church as well as anyone passing by. Kids, teenagers and adults decorated the tower with drawings and paintings that reflected the intended function of the “Confetti Tower” itself. As a result the subjects of the illustrations were happiness, playfulness and the best things in life, like ice cream cones falling in one’s mouth, the circus, amusement park rides and declarations of love. After the exhibition ended the painted panels of the tower were removed from the structure and auctioned off during one of the church’s events. The profits were donated to the organization of young activists in order for them to visit and help rebuild the city of New Orleans.

The importance of this project was placed upon the relationship of site, time, and the observer / activator. By displaying the work in two separate environments I was able to see how greatly certain circumstances influence a project and how social engagement further defines the work. Those two sites demanded a different approach to how the confetti was triggered. The first site – Cranbrook Art Museum – produced passive observers of the happening, while the busy city street of Grand Rapids allowed for dynamic interactions and transformed the observers into direct activators and participants. The social exchange within those two contrary sites allowed me to comprehend that the public itself should be considered as a building material, which must be utilized to further extend meaning and relationships within the built environment.

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James Chesnut & Nisha R. Patel:

Pantanal Partnership: Building Education in the World

James Chesnut is a Master of Architecture candidate at the University of Michiganâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Taubman College. He also holds a BArch from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque where he graduated with honors. Prior to his academic studies at Michigan he was a carpenter with 10+ years of residential construction experience and management. Jamesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; research examines urban form and social structures through an understanding of complexity theory and posits architecture as an integral agent in the production of equitable space. He supplements academia by pursuing hands on full scale building projects and has most recently collaborated on a school in the Pantanal of Brazil. James positions his current and professional work in service of people who would otherwise not have access to a design/build architect.

Nisha R. Patel is a Master of Architecture candidate at the University of Michiganâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Taubman College. She also holds a Bachelor of Arts in political science with a minor in history of art from the University of Michigan. Nisha is interested in cross-cultural exchanges in which architecture becomes the mediator. Her studies have taken her to Spain, Italy and, most recently, to Brazil where she especially appreciated the opportunity to participate in local building practices.

Her current research involves questioning how the roles of designer, builder, and user can be collapsed through a reframing of how architects engage the design process. Nisha looks forward to a continued involvement with local and global communities in order to make good design universally accessible.

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In developing sustainable architectural projects and communities, oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ability to understand the local economy of materials, labor, and construction techniques becomes a great asset. In many cases we are designers at a distance. Ambiguity with respect to the field condition is an obstacle. For the designer, obstacles become opportunities and the moment of exchange.

Over the course of one year, a school and community center was designed and built in a rural and remote region of the Pantanal in Brazil. The primary objectives of the project were to develop design strategies that are poised for unpredictable field conditions encountered when the site of construction is not fully accessible during the design process. In doing so, the design document moves away from the rigidity of the construction document and is developed as a performance specification

that sets up a tectonic framework while allowing for modifications to reflect the acquisition and exchange of local knowledge and fieldwork. This highlights the opportunities that arise when design from a distance meets specific field conditions and demands multiple strategies for representation and documentation (digital modeling, scaled drawings on site, photography, sketches, and others).

The project that follows provides, in built form, an alternative to the very heart of architectural practice and academic discourse in activist architecture. The notion that the construction details, materials, and methodology must be rigorously defined prior to engaging a design and/or construction process is one that has fundamentally enabled and constricted the agency of the architect at home and abroad. The reality is that the rigors of research cannot always avail the architect the necessary information that can accommodate this traditional role; opportunity for innovation and education emerge from direct engagement in sitespecific field conditions. The ability of the architect to adapt rather than prescribe, collaborate rather than command, and engage rather than intervene, sets the tone for contemporary practice where agency is realized in spatial and social form.

Through this process the role of the architect as one who develops the document that is then abided by during construction changes to one who accepts the unknown as such and engages the design and construction processes as a pursuit of emerging information in an unfamiliar site of production.

Site The project site is located at kilometer 114 of the Transpantaniera Highway in the Pantanal in the southwest region of Brazil. The Pantanal is the largest wetland in the world and is listed by UNESCO as one of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most ecologically sensitive and important sites. The Transpantaniera, a dirt road that stretches 150 kilometers, connects the small fishing village of Porto Jofre and the city of PoconĂŠ and is sparsely populated with cattle ranchers (panteneiros), fisherman, and ecological tourist lodges (eco lodges). This distance from Porto Jofre to Pocone can take three to four hours depending on the road conditions and the 107 wooden bridges that enable transport. Because the closest educational facility is in PoconĂŠ, many of the locals must leave the area in pursuit of a proper education and those who lack the means for transport are left without schooling. This trend has relocated a population who would otherwise stay if they had access to educational facilities and in doing so has removed those with the greatest knowledge of this highly sensitive region of the Pantanal.

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The remote nature of the site was a logistical hurdle and produced anxiety, as we are designers who seek a level of specificity when defining key elements such as local building materials and methods. Early in the design process it became clear that much of the information on site specifics and rural building technologies in Brazil would be somewhat of an ambiguous field condition until the point when we arrived on site. Accepting that as a design opportunity, the design team focused on what was known, mostly concerning climatic conditions of the region, its location in the southern hemisphere, and the programmatic demands. In doing so we formulated a performance specification that detailed how we envisioned the architecture to function and a general layout that would accommodate the anticipated program while maintaining flexibility.

Sustainability Pantanal Partnership and the design team were intent on the production of sustainable communities and defining sustainability in a way that goes beyond environmental conditions. In a project such as this where design originates in the United States, the challenge is to rethink the normative measures of architectural practice and discourse. Much of what we do as designers resides in the provisions of a service that is by its very nature top-down and reinforced by agencies such as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) that define sustainability and the criteria for its recognition. Defining and realizing built projects in foreign field conditions according to the framework of sustainable architectural practice within the United States can be more restrictive than advancing.

In this case sustainability is not only recognized through the metric that can determine how much solar power it takes to relieve a diesel generator but also as a strategy that demands a qualitative measure. This included a variety of ways to inject money into the local economies by utilizing local materials and labor and by implementing local building methodology to provide a means for social sustainability, ownership, and the local reproduction of the introduced design tactics. The intent is not only to provide one village in Brazil with a school, but also to create a sustainable system that may be applied to similar communities worldwide. What emerges from this process is not only an architectural object, but also an exchange of knowledge and culture.

On the Ground Although it is our position that design strategies can be both speculative and anticipatory, the success of the project weighed heavily on a longer standing

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relationship of Ethan Shirley, one of the Pantanal Partnership project directors, and Eduardo Falcao De Arruda, the owner of the Jaguar Ecological Reserve (http:// www.jaguarreserve.com/) and donator of the land on which the project is sited.

With this connection in place, the first days on the ground were used as a means of immersion, both cultural and strategic. Our first step was to gather information by surveying local architecture using photography to document building details.

We met with an architectural engineer, masons, and material suppliers to establish key relationships immediately. Although Ethan is fluent in Portuguese, it was imperative that we became more accustomed to the construction terminology and began putting it to use. We brushed up on the metric system of measurement to determine the building module and most importantly became quite aware of the laid back nature of Brazilian culture, daily naps, and the relaxed attitude towards scheduling and working. Time was also allowed for travel up and down the Transpantaniera and into the bush to get a feel for the ecology and cultures in the Pantanal. All of these engagements in the early days on the ground were not hindered by trying to accommodate a pre-figured design and were important not only to educate ourselves but also to give a sense of where we were locally and in the world. This set up long stints of rugged labor under the hot sun in a remote place without having access to the outside or Poconé for as long as four weeks at a time. Our work schedule was generally sun up to sun down with a one hour lunch, seven days per week. Physical stress and isolation would end up being one of the most challenging aspects of this design build project.

Early on, as a way to legitimize the project for the local government and the Secretary of Education, the performance specification was taken to a local engineer in Poconé. In collaboration with the design team and directors a “construction document” (one plan and one elevation) was produced and was used as a dimensioned template by which we would operate from and on, reworking it as we went. The design included a half monitor roof, which was one of the few design moves that was new to this area. Full monitors are used in barns and larger agricultural buildings for ventilation, as we realized in our survey of local architecture, and the half monitor was a way for our design to ventilate and provide additional indirect lighting.

Construction / Design The construction process was executed in three basic parts that provided different educational experiences and opportunities for cultural exchange. It was our

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responsibility to figure out the logistics of excavation and foundation work, and while digging is fairly self-explanatory, the methods and materials of block work and concrete/mortar mixtures were sought out from local masons in PoconĂŠ and along the Transpantaniera. It is important to note that the site conditions vary drastically and the wetlands of the Transpantaniera experience a water table shift of two to four meters seasonally, which demands a particular type of block for the foundation. Much of this information was gathered as we spoke with and worked along side the locals. All excavation and foundation work was done by hand and with the help of a group of GIEU (Global Intercultural Experience for Undergraduates) students led by Melinda Matice, an educator at the University of Michigan.

The concrete frame and walls were erected with the hands-on assistance and direction of local masons who were hired to assist in the building construction midway through construction. We expected the masons earlier in the process but realized early on that urgency in Brazilian culture is hit or miss when it comes to scheduling. Nonetheless, the masons were particularly helpful in the fabrication of the structural concrete frame, which we had very little previous experience with.

The half monitor and roof construction produced a flip in roles where its implementation and construction depended on our ability to communicate its functional advantages while working through a new typology with the locals. We discussed its fabrication with a local crew of framers who eventually failed to return to begin work. The task was then transferred to the masons who proclaimed proficiency in a multitude of trades including carpentry. This was not the case nor were we surprised at the unfolding of events that put the burden back where it belonged, on us.

Each phase was executed with a level of confidence and weariness. Amidst the collective of students, professionals, and locals was a variety of knowledge that was leveraged appropriately. The agency of the designer within this collective was not determined by oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ability to mediate or adhere to the plan and the site specific building methods but rather by employing an understanding of material tendencies, for example the tensile nature of steel rebar and compressive nature of concrete, and universal techniques to creating square, plumb, and level components.

The most basic tools were available to achieve this and included: measuring tapes

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to establish a 3,4,5 triangle, dry line, plumb bobs, and clear hose and water to level both long and short distances.

As we engaged each stage of construction and in order to supplement the basic plan and elevation drawings, we spent the evenings sketching sections, axonometrics, and elevations to help the non-architects and us better understand the makeup of the foundation, walls, the structural frame, and trusses. Digital modeling was also used throughout the construction process as a means to communicate the projected design, understand methods, and as a way to determine ballpark numbers for the quantity of materials that were needed for each phase of construction. Rendered detail drawings were specifically developed so future parties interested in Brazilian construction methods have a base to start from and are made available at our website (www.designbuildbrazil.com).

Reflections Engagement in activist architecture abroad is often riddled with unknowns and assumptions that can be cause for anxiety amongst architects trained to rely on a course of action that is based on rigorously devising the construction document. A clear mission, in this case sustainability, defines the path, and the ambition to be part of something bigger than oneself establishes the will. Architectural training provides the tools necessary to create opportunity from such anxiety and to realize built projects

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that cannot manifest from the traditional expectations of architectural practice.

The willingness to enter into the unknown armed with design skills and open to a collaborative process that engages multidisciplinary and multicultural support aided in fulfilling this mission. In doing so, alternative strategies for design processes and practice were developed and allow for greater agency to the architect who seeks to do similar design build work.

While the majority of construction was completed in October 2010, finishing touches and outfitting are near completion. With the architecture in place and deemed viable, funding from the Brazilian Secretary of Education has been determined and the school year will begin in May 2011 at the start of the dry season.

Pantanal Partnership is a University of Michigan multidisciplinary sponsored student organization with non-profit status that involves students in architecture, engineering, anthropology, international natural resources studies, and business.

This project would not be possible without the ambitions and boldness of Ethan Shirley and Julie Bateman who are the founders of Pantanal Partnership and directors of the Pantanal Center for Education and Research, as well as the calm and collect of designer Johnathan Puff and educator Melinda Matice.

More information on how to get involved can be found at http://sites.google.com/site/ pantanalcer/home

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Jef fr ey Maniaci:

C o r k t ow n C o f f e r Credit Union

Jeffrey Maniaci is a second year student at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture.

He enjoys being involved in his school, and aimlessly exploring the city of Detroit is a passion of his. In his free time he can be seen browsing architecture blogs and daydreaming about his future. Jeffrey is very passionate about architecture, most evident when he is completely immersed in a project. He is interested in more than just neighborhoods, sites, and programs, but rather how all of these entities come together to coexist. In the future he plans to study abroad to experience the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cultures, architecture, and natural beauty first hand. Jeffrey has a very positive outlook for Detroit and plans on using his experiences to help with its revitalization.

He believes opportunities exist which make it possible to still be someone in this city, to make a difference, and to be a part of the positive future of Detroit.

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With Detroit as a background and contextual reference, I have conceptualized a notion that architecture should react to the economic, social, and cultural conditions that the client expresses or that exists in a community. My study for a credit union acting as a generator for community engagement has uncovered the need for architecture to quickly respond to deeper aspects of the community. The study challenged the idea that architecture is ultimately just a physical commodity to be owned. These explorations unveiled that architecture has an opportunity to add an intangible value to the community it is designed to serve.

The Corktown Coffer Credit Unionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s [CCCU] architectural solution was based on the view that architecture adds inherent value onto its site and into the communityin which it is based. The credit union is a financial institution that

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is owned and operated by its customers who all band together to accomplish common tasks. As a co-operative credit union, the CCCU will choose to invest in the areas that are advantageous to its customers. Since it brings together residents of Corktown, the most obvious investment is the neighborhood itself. The Corktown neighborhood of Detroit is the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s oldest neighborhood nestled in the shadows of the Michigan Central Depot. Just outside of downtown, the eclectic neighborhood is filled with people of varying ages and interests who all maintain well-kept, single family dwellings juxtaposed to abandoned manufacturing facilities. The Michigan Avenue commercial strip has ignited a new found interest in the neighborhood and as it begins to grow, the need for a community anchor is apparent. With this new growth and delicate balance between existing and new, as well as commercial and residential, the CCCUâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s location was an ideal opportunity for a space to serve the needs of community collaboration and planning. The CCCU was designed to bridge the existing gap between commercial and residential interests and to fuel positive growth. It will become a physical representation of an intangible commitment to communal advancement, and the architecture will therefore be the commodity in itself, constantly traded within the financial institution and doing what architecture should do: continuously evolve to meet future needs. In turn, value is gained by the neighborhood because the

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CCCU begins to engage and interact with the community.

This entire process began with a study of the word contemplation through an exercise of the immeasurable versus the measurable.

The immeasurable is the intangible and cannot be touched, but instead is a feeling, attitude, or idea. [See Figure 1] The measurable is the tangible, which can be touched and physically manipulated through architecture, material, and sound. [See Figure 2] In my studies of contemplation through this exercise, new relationships of tension unfolded. This tension was both measurable and immeasurable, between objects and people within space. Through more research on the idea of contemplation in architecture, I found it to be the foundation for meditative spaces. This research would later contribute to a need for individuals to find places of contemplation

The first façade study began to incorporate elements of substantial mass which banks built prior to 1950 used to convey a sense of security. The steel frame sheathed in glass would represent the designs of current banking and financial institutions with an added transparent nature.

within an intense community anchor point.

As a result of the contemplation study, a program was established that added specific values to the existing community that I utilized to challenge the idea of a credit union. The CCCU houses - along with the traditional functions of a community credit union - a community workroom with a gallery and four different residential units as well as open public space in a terraced alley façade. The need for privacy among these programs informed the arrangement of the meditation spaces which were integrated within the residential units. These spaces would allow the user to clear their mind of the day’s events and traumas, in turn allowing them to recoup. The opportunity for the resident to escape is also offered to the pedestrian, adding one of the core values to the immediate building community. [See Figure 3] Looking through the lens of contemplation

Later in the design process, the system for the suspended masonry panels was established. The panels progressively open on 15 degree increments creating a visual transparency on the ground level, leading to the outcrop for the CCCU’s entrance.

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Figure 3

Figure 4

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was a very useful tool because it allowed me to focus on a single thought, that when taken to the next level, introduced me to an entirely new side of architecture. The result of these studies created a catalyst for both commercial and residential growth within the Corktown neighborhood. The building is a successful infill project, providing a cooperative communal space for the entirety of Corktown to come together in a business and economic sense. The CCCU physically engages the community by bridging the disconnect from the Michigan Avenue commercial strip to the residents and alleyways behind. By pulling the structure up to the sidewalk, I was able to maintain the existing street faรงade, but introduce a new faรงade element. Masonry panels hinged at the exterior of each structural bay were suspended over the sidewalk below. These panels are mirrored by a glass sidewalk which looks down into the community workroom and gallery space. On the back residential faรงade, the units interlock spatially on all three floors allowing multiple points of access from each residence to a shared exterior space. In the second floor plan and in the diagrams shown, a second story exterior space is shared with the community and the residents. [See Figure 4] The participation of pedestrians and customers on multiple levels and within many localized spaces creates a feeling of ownership for the community. This ownership has added an immeasurable

CORKTOWN COFFER CREDIT UNION

Stop Motion â&#x20AC;&#x201C; This study was done to map out and show the relationship between commercial and residential zones, and how each behave with the growth, decline, and regeneration of the neighborhood.

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amount of community, social, and cultural value to the neighborhood. By integrating this structure into the existing urban fabric and opening it up to everyone, it begins to be absorbed into the community and becomes accessible to all.

In the city of Detroit, where vacant land and deterioration is rampant, community commitment to positive growth and preservation of neighborhoods is essential to the future of Detroit. Architecture such as the CCCU is one such commitment to the growth of the community in both physical and non-physical ways. Exchange between residents, pedestrians, and the building can add a social dynamic to the community where large scale collaboration can occur, community interests are put first, and where the architecture can react to - and serve - its users. As a catalyst for commercial and social development, the CCCU will not only be a link between commercial and residential interests, but also engage the community in ways rarely seen. It will be owned and operated by its members as a constantly traded commodity, since architecture is never really complete but rather evolves with time. The ability for growth adds an economic value to Corktown, making it an attractive neighborhood where a communityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s interests come first.

Below: This diagram is used to show the circulation of residents and pedestrians. The diagram also shows the break down, floor by floor, of each residential unit to show the close interlocking spaces between them.

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CORKTOWN COFFER CREDIT UNION

DICHOTOMY 17

Beverly Fre$h:

Performer and Place: A Social Exchange Beverly Fre$h is a contemporary artist and musician currently living and working in Chicago. He was the 2009 recipient of the Daimler AG Emerging Artist Award, for which he spent several months in Berlin continuing a series of guerilla performances at locations of historical importance such as Checkpoint Charlie. He has also performed atop Machu Picchu and at the Great Wall of China. In 2009 he starred in a feature film by artist / designer Elliott Earls “The Saranay Motel,” and at a recent exhibition and performance at the Cranbrook Academy of Art Museum, broke several Guinness Book World records including breaking the most eggs on his head in under a minute and compiling the world’s tallest stack of rap tapes.

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The transformative process of private to public is prevalent throughout my body of work and manifested through diverse means and media. Be it through exhibition, design or performance, solitary practice emerges to engage the public.

During a public performance, the concept of effort and energy is explored through fluctuating tension and constructed situations which are established to produce new social relationships. One of the primary goals of my performance is to extend the actual production of my work beyond the conventions of the gallery or studio.

By producing my work in a public setting I am attempting to redefine the role of the artist as mediator and agitator by embracing social exchange.

Blurring the boundary between the everyday and spectacle, the performances explore constrictions between man, nature, and social context as my presence as a performer produces a fluctuating tension between physical landscape and societal ego. Here, I utilize context as an active variable producing new layers of meaning within the work. By performing at a range of locations from historically charged landmarks as well as mundane everyday sites such as water towers, abandoned gas stations and back roads, I am attempting to re-imagine place as situation, whereby my performance becomes an impetus for an

altered landscape or social space. Through this series of performances the presence of the performer creates a situation in the state of flux. The place or landscape in turn becomes a shifting and fragmented entity, used to punctuate the performance.

I will highlight two separate series of performances which serve as an investigation of the connection between performer and place and uncover what it means to produce work in a public setting.

I will explain how social exchange becomes a strategy within the work and how a onetime performance can be sustained through

Outskirts

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public participation. Landmarks and Outskirts invade two inherently different social spaces, however, the major themes explored through the performances remain consistent in the two separate works. The performances themselves examine ritual, myth, storytelling, music and comedy.

The act of performance is never specific but rather orientated to the performance site. By keeping the performative element consistent, I am able to explore how the variable of site and audience can add further dimension to the work.

a shift in dominance occurs and the tourists that temporarily inhabit these areas are no longer passive observers of natural beauty.

Here, an active deviation is introduced and a constriction between past and present is developed. Through this work I define the â&#x20AC;&#x153;forced audience.â&#x20AC;? Often interacting with tourists, each of these performances employs the variable of chance, and the role of the collective observer becomes participatory. The viewers are no longer reflecting on the ruins or events of the past but participating in the present.

Landmarks: A Historical Exchange By performing at locations of historical and archeological importance, my presence acts as a variable as I explore the power dynamics of a constructed social setting. Meddling with the social implications of a destination spot, this work disrupts both the physical and social landscape. In these performances

From a societal perspective these works perpetuate myth and storytelling which are central themes of my work. I see myth as providing an extra dimension to our existence, creating an illusion of endless possibility. Through storytelling, the work takes on a life of its own after creation, and the event is sustained and the story is passed on from person to person. The original event is subject to the unreliable nature of memory. The performance and its effects evolve over time. I am interested in how the original event can resonate and become embedded in materials, memory and social space. The Landmarks performances utilize the landscape as a stage or altar.

This spatial composition acts as the focus of energy; it is where the action takes place.

After the performance is done, the tension of the (ritual) event still remains. These experiences accumulate and pass from the physical to the psychic as a result of the performance.

Worlds furthest spit attempt

DICHOTOMY 17

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PERFORMER AND SPACE

Guerilla performance at Machu Picchu, Peru

DICHOTOMY 17

Outskirts: Exchange with Non-Place Outskirts, is a series of site-oriented performances which further examine the relationship between performer and place. The performances are not specific to location, but rather seek to uncover new relationships that occur due to proximity and the tension of a foreign entity interacting with place. Outskirts serves as an extension of the Landmarks performances at areas of historical importance including, Machu Picchu (Peru, 2008), the Great Wall of China (China, 2008), and Checkpoint Charlie (Germany, 2009). This series of performances conversely explores locations of non-event and seeks to uncover the dormant energy and substance in areas comprised of the under examined and banal. Taking place at locations in Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin these performances are essentially embedded in the context of the Midwestern landscape, however, they are not simply about the rural Midwest. Each of the five site-oriented performances indulges in the nonspecifics of the commonplace, while seeking to subvert the preconceptions of place itself. At these remote locations such as empty supermarket parking lots and desolate roadsides the absence of people, of use and activity, form a sense of freedom from expectancy. The vacancy of these locations contains connotations of vagrancy, mobility and a strange sense of liberty. The dynamics of the landscape or place is altered by the introduction of the performer in an attempt to forge new meaning and relationships within this newly constructed context. The performance itself essentially establishes a new social space; one without physical boarders, but rather defined by the variables, emotion and action of an event.

Both Landmarks and Outskirts are public performances which work to debunk my personal notion of the everyday through confrontation and rigor. By removing the production of the work itself from the safety and neutrality of the gallery or studio, these works gather layers of meaning from a social context and are further heighted by the variable of chance. The presence and interaction of tourists at my 2009 Checkpoint Charlie performance produced instability as the once passive observers became active participants. My performance at Machu Picchu (2008), explored a shift in dominance as the performer interacted with the environment.

Other video/performance works such as Ganja and Guano (2008), What I Do Do (2008) and installation/performance pieces such as B FRE$H (2009) at the Cranbrook Academy of Art Museum, focus on performative acts that involve spectacle. Physical feats such as setting world records, combined with humor, short stories and reworked folk songs function to sustain mythos. These performances

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prey on our collective fascination with extraordinary feats no matter how ridiculous or unnecessary, and simultaneously force an unconventional working methodology.

For example in the 2008 performance Beverly Eats Cake, I consumed an entire sheet cake. Often the subjects of my short videos/performances are direct and easily

described, the purpose being that they become socially contagious. For example, did you see the guy who performed on top of the Great Wall of China, outside of the abandoned factory or in front of Buffalo Wild Wings?

Guerilla performance at Check Point Charlie: Berlin, Germany

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VOLTERRA - DETROIT

FOUNDATION

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udm|soa news

Future residential college

Foundation President Wladek Fuchs:

T

wenty-five years ago the University of Detroit School of Architecture started a summer program in Italy. After the first few years, when the students had stayed in Florence, the program was moved to Volterra, an Etruscan hill town located right in the middle of Tuscany, equal in distance between Pisa, Florence and Siena.

From the beginning, the program has been recognized as an essential pedagogical component of the School of Architecture curriculum, with courses in Italian Language, Italian Art History, Alabaster Sculpting, Architectural Analysis, and Architectural Design. It involved students from a variety of cultural backgrounds, UDM faculty, as well as alabaster artisans and other professionals from Volterra.

Altogether, over 300 students have participated in the program over the years. For them, Volterra became a second homeâ&#x20AC;Ś

DICHOTOMY 17

The unique value of the program for both the students and the community of Volterra and the lasting commitment of the School of Architecture UDM gave a spark to a recent, unprecedented initiative.

The Comune di Volterra has offered us an 18th Century building rent-free for a minimum of 30 years to use as a Residential College. We will carry out the necessary renovations to adapt the building to the new function. Based on our preliminary design, the building upon completion will have dormitory rooms for 26 students, two faculty suites, two design studios, a seminar room, an exhibition space and all supporting facilities. The total square footage is approximately 10,000 square feet (950 square meters).

The building occupies a prime location within the old Etruscan and Medieval walls of the city. It was originally built as the first permanent school of alabaster in Volterra by the Inghirami family. As such, it holds a very special place in the local culture.

The School of Architecture would have a privilege to continue the tradition of art and design education at this unique location.

The new International Residential College in Volterra will be the focal point for studies of the heritage, modern architecture and culture of Tuscany, Italy, and Europe, and will serve as a center for intellectual exchange with other academic institutions.

It will become an essential pedagogical

VOLTERRA-DETROIT FOUNDATION

Renderings for future interiors

component at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture in preparing students for the global, professional market. Because of the unique form of the agreement with the Comune di Volterra, the cost of participating in the program for the students will be kept at the level similar to a semester of study on the campus in Detroit.

Depending on the structure of the Volterra Residential College program, around 80100 students will be able to participate in the program every year. A full semester study will be the norm, but other options will also be considered, including special short programs utilizing time between the semesters. This outstanding opportunity will

allow more School of Architecture students to participate in the Volterra program, and also students of art and design from other universities.

Alumni of the School of Architecture, with support from the Faculty, have created the non-profit Volterra-Detroit Foundation to carry out this project and raise funds necessary for the renovation of the building.

The fundraising campaign includes a variety of financing options, to allow everyone to contribute to this project according to their means, and share in the vision of the International Exchange Program at the UDM School of Architecture through the new Volterra International Residential College.

For more information about the project please visit

www.volterra-detroit.org

Critical Engagement

University of Detroit Mercy | School of Architecture Great Lakes Fabricators and Erectors Association Funded Lecture Series 2011 | 2012 A series of discussions centered on the interdisciplinary nature of architecture and design as a predominantly collaborative endeavor.

For upcoming lectures and events, please visit: http://arch.udmercy.edu For more information, please contact Lecture Series Chair, Amy Green Deines: deinesag@udmercy.edu

Additional Sponsors Include: AIA Detroit, Dichotomy, HOK Toronto, Rossetti Associates, Master of Community Development Program and SSOE, Inc., Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s & Gender Studies Program

Dichotomy has come of age and has been set free from tradition, code, rule, boundaries, order, and maybe even law. An intermission from our society of limitations of design and standards of practice is about to be unveiled. What contributions are you willing to unleash for this issue exploring experimentation and a break from the norms that you must live and design by?

The 18th Edition of Dichotomy â&#x20AC;&#x153;Rumspringaâ&#x20AC;? is all about coming of age, questioning roles, and self exploration within the discourse of design, architecture, urbanism, and community development.

Submit your 200-300 word abstracts with 3 images in PDF format to dichotomyudm@gmail.com. Abstracts will be considered through Deceber 1, 2011.

Questions? dichotomyudm@gmail.com P. 313-993-1532

Attn: Dichotomy University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture 4001 W. McNichols Rd. Detroit, MI 48221-3038