P1 by Emily L. Silva

-Interiority Prototype

Fig. 1 Receptor for Elsewhere

1. Studio public toilet cabin remodel urban design cartography

2. transMUTATION[lab] the dinner prototypes of elsewhere absence of the chora

3. Research systems materials site case study

public[toilet]

-EXPOSURE

Anonymity in the industrialized world has caused the detachment of the human body from the spaces we inhabit. Shining light on the absent body, architecture is no longer bound within the compulsive need for separation-- a need for separation by gender, the separation of the female body from the public eye. This emancipation gives dignity to the ritualistic layers of the everyday.

bus lane

Fig. 1

Top: Floor Plan, North Elevation, South Elevation

Fig. 2

Conceptual perspective, view looking up from layered silicon dioxide toilet stall, 2016

universal[DESIGN]competition

-Log Cabin Remodel, 2014

An opening of time reveals this moment of neutrality. Space occupying the presence of today, shadows the objects of memory, and light the bind of material. An extension of the doctorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s arms as a portal designed for the comfort of home. It is our situation in the present that memories occupy our shelves.

To others, ephemeral. For me, a landscape of life.

cover sleeve (for tension rod) joining plate steel sash and stopper window opening

Fig. 1 Raised Wall Diagram

Fig. 2 Raised Wall Entrance

[urban]design

-Rail Yards, Albuquerque, NM 2013

barelas

residences.

private priva pr priv p privat rivat rriva riv riiiva vaaatte

hotel

opaque.

high-end enter here. recognition.

art.

public

Fig. 1

literature+museum

Programming Diagram

retail

accomplishment + the office with a view.

public easy-access.

Fig. 2 Event Space

cartography

-Albuquerque, New Mexico 1990

Fig. 1

pins on museum board, 2011

1. Studio public toilet cabin remodel urban design cartography

2. transMUTATION[lab] the dinner prototypes of elsewhere absence of the chora

3. Research systems materials site case study

transMUTATION[lab] -The Dinner [of Suffering]

Image by Hirbod Norouzian Pour, Dinner in Transmutation Lab by Emily Silva #unm #architecture #transmutation #lab #dinner #sushi #tent #spacecraft #red #transmutationlab #womb

Fig. The Critical Interior

I’ve occupied the lines my hand makes across the page. Understanding this space, its texture, and the sounds our feet make as we cross new territory, I can’t help but wonder about the difference between my eyes and what you see. Wading in the waters of occupied thought, the architecture of my mind becomes a labyrinth where I lose sight of context. My retreat into that interior realm is one I expect others imagine themselves within too. Yet the moment my words begin to render this ‘imagined’ into the physical realm we share, I don’t recognize the same space in your eyes as mine. Within the meaning of this space, I’ve extracted ‘thoughtful’ and ‘empathetic’ as words to describe it, but reflecting is a translation of ‘confusion’. The muting of anything external to blend our ideas as one, backfires. The sharing of space—it’s a language that is lost, but it doesn’t have to be.

transMUTATIONlab

The representation of architecture is desperate for enclosure, but misplaced efforts to house an interior happens because its inhabitants haven’t always been open. Architecture is a dialogue, not a single-sided lecture, nor an isolating boundary. At the core, it is a vessel that takes on a voice of meaning and depth by allowing for simultaneous viewpoints of the world. These viewpoints becoming, both, receptor and transmitter for our unique way of seeing. Interpretation, both literal and assessment, is just as important as the transcribing of the interior through speech. Misreading and retreating to our interior is personal growth, but the sharing of our space is where we have the fortuitous moment of responding. In the search for truth, our interiors are always present, but difficulty comes in rendering ourselves in the world of each other.

Fig. Dinner 1.31.17

Physical boundaries are not architecture but remain the scar left behind by a fearful interior’s withdrawal from the outside world. We must assure ourselves that these boundaries are less difficult to cross, it’s the bridging of our interior that takes work in decidedly meeting. If history of the Berlin Wall must stand as precedent today, then the breaks in the boundary will serve as our broken seals to communication within. These breaks, the cracks in the form, will never be muted.

‘All are equal but some are more equal than others.’ –George Orwell, Animal Farm Not here Napoleon, the United States will not be your farm.

Image by Alaa Quraishi, lunch @transmutationlab #transmutationlab

[else]where

-Portable Puddle, 2016 Dirty Dishes: an accumulation of time

...spent in elsewhere

My mind drifts to certain memories while I sit on the step. Here, the leaves have come and left, their residue scatters like the thoughts I can’t fit to words. My garden of past ‘thoughts’ was here, but I came home to find the landlord removed all pattern in the soil. He is the ruler of my sacred space. -Beginning--I already feel the need to interject. This is merely a byproduct of the sacred space—my stair, and upon completion it is no longer the opening of my thoughts, but a representation of these thoughts. -Focusing on somewhat distant memories—the opposition between my inhabited and organized, I withdrew memories from a hidden space encapsulated in my mind. Attempting to write on the confessional solidarity during moments on the step, thus in turn pulling them into the realm I speak to others within, I hoped this sacredness could be understood. It would bridge what happens at my ‘sacred’ into the realm of this real. Though the significance of the step, manifesting itself through words, now in a different location, doesn’t resonate the same in this room as in the room in my mind. I resist the admittance of so much because this paper covered in words, I fear, cannot be the projection of what happens in this space. The sacred space houses the residue of my thoughts, though the trail from this spot (the step—the place I write everything from) to the words I use to [re]place what memory

reveals, is challenging enough. Then how I may render these thoughts into you, has issues. This translation, my memory (convoluted and all) translated into the words that I have deemed fitting, to your understanding, to the ways you decipher the words I use--somehow these words must fill your mind with the same thoughts that I have? This translation is completely hindered--by my own words. If only the viewfinder, a possible other reality, could offer a peek into what others allow to be seen. Although, maybe this applauds sight over sound or touch—do sound waves allow us to see--better? -My eyes--focused on thoughts, peering into elsewhere, and then, the leaf falls: transporting me back. I know this is a sign. A sign telling me it’s okay; thinking to grandpa, him telling me he is here. There is a reason for why this step is here. My thoughts remain here; I can feel when I’m here. Though there is most likely no significance in this leaf; the funny thing about saying this is a sign is I have sat here and told myself it is a sign of something. I do the same thing with clocks, if I happen to look at a clock at 11:11 then I tell myself it is a sign of whatever it is that I want it to be a sign of. In Eliade’s writing on the sacred space, he argues that humans cannot live in chaos. For life to be possible, there is an opening toward the transcendent that we fill. Religious experience precedes all reflection on the world—but something is missing for me, and maybe this step is not sacred at all, but

simply the place I value because I am in search of the experience to teach me about the sacred. -As a kid during my first trip to Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, I did not see the spherical floor plan in the built ruins, nor its placement in the landscape. I didn’t listen to the theories of hierophanies, nor look to the cosmos for answers. I was prone to discarding what I did not understand, and Chaco Canyon fell victim to my naivety. What I chose to become memory was the size of the inhabitant’s beds. I didn’t see this place during a recent visit to Chaco Canyon, or maybe I did and couldn’t recognize it as the same as what I’ve repeated in my mind. At the time, these beds were significant because they were a size fit for me. I could imagine myself grown; I hated seeing from below—with how small the native people to Chaco Canyon were, I didn’t have to mature to see just as an adult would see.

younger and needed to understand the world from the height of the adult to see their advanced view. Yet, I keep thinking that the revelation of some absolute will occur, and then it will make sense. I haven’t approached the moment when I can understand or begin to understand just what Sloterdijk wants to be understood, and I seem to doubt more and more any revelation coming from the falling of a leaf, or the strangeness of another 5 am morning on this spot. I wonder if I am simply asking for a sign to put an end to my disorientation? I fear these words I write (or speak depending on the location) have disassociated their meaning. I’ve repeated so often, claimed them less of a hold, except in the sacred space. This space, the only place I stake their claim, is a place these memories truly exist. And I am this, because of that. But in another room, they fall flat. This is probably that.

The step leading into my apartment, I wonder if it is just my favorite spot or if I can’t see beyond that, yet. When I begin on the words of Sloterdijk, reading his theory on Hieronymus Bosch or the spherical interior, too many of my own feelings and expressions convolute his meaning. His words are held hostage to the relations and meanings I connect them to—and in many ways I believe this is exactly what Sloterdijk is fighting against. I am merely the small thinker believing a view advances from above—I have not changed enough from the time I was Fig. 1 Portable Puddle Prototype, 2016

[else]where

-Interiority Prototype

Fig. 1 Receptor for Elsewhere

What is the problem with architecture simply representing architecture? The thoughts flood in, stop the propaganda—no more HGTV inscribing the partitioning of decorated space to the masses, or the resale values of the Tuscan Villa massing in the middle of Tucson, or the product representative prescribing their window pane at a price compromising vision. In Western Culture where economic gains reign supreme and if you don’t have the equity in your larger than large house, then you just aren’t playing it right, right? Where is the heart, where am I in this ‘architecture’? Is the idea of the micro-housing (at macro-cost), architecture? It fits the bill if you’ve read the headlines of any one Dwell magazine over the last decade. And again, I will repeat the original question—because I’ve lost the thought to find myself fondling another catalog from IKEA. Why can’t architecture represent architecture? Zooming in on the architectural model, here lies the answer to the question: I’m staring at a screen decorated by computer input and output plugs that, combined, form a representation of physical form. This is called architecture, or at least I hear it chanted as that day after day. Is it an arbitrary, forced reduction of the human element of space? A production of shiny, curvilinear (gender distorting?) forms that are designed by task abiding, math colliding computer [architects]? In the architectural ‘equation’ (human and

computer variables), finite instruments crush infinite dreams. The derivative—the computer, dismisses the availability of change, but this change is beyond what the minded humans can calculate. Therefore, because the above-average human cannot calculate change at the same pace as Computer, humans talk about computers as infinite realms. This is not to be confused, as of this year 2017 (early), computers are [merely] gathering the data we hand them, and operating on these calculated and finite terms. Given an input, an output is found, and of equal distances to other inputs and outputs. The moment humans retreat from giving inputs, and the computer regulates itself, then a virtual infinite exists without necessary threshold from the human reality. The constant negotiation, possibly a dialog, between the human architect and technology, is a collaboration that I don’t know can, or should, share a semblance of equality. I’m fighting this equality for my mind’s sake. To be in equilibrium with technology, and this technology having the ability to define a translation of my thoughts when read through a computer screen, diminishes me. It diminishes my interaction with another physical human. Let me know that I have some greater depth to me! Sure, emerging computers and technology have sensors reacting to sight, sound, touch, but they cannot feel empathy? Although recently, I’ve found myself wondering if humans, too, cannot position themselves, ourselves, to feel way the other feels? This dehumanization is in

[else]where

desperation for an empathetic architecture—but again, the question of what architecture [is] creeps itself back into this conversation. I’ll admit, this could be giving far less credit to the human mind and far too much credit to the fulfillment of a physical architecture—so, the lingering question: does (can) architecture represent architecture? Is the physical building (whether product of the human or computer ‘architect’), merely ornamentation to a deeper realm within the human mind? With computers and technology infiltrating [what I believe is] a human reality, I wonder if my retreat to the photograph of a younger self or to the birthday card inscribed with my grandmother’s handwriting, is a memory of not only place within an object but of an object within which to transcend interaction and engagement of that place and of that time? Is this object skewing my vision from that of an emerging—or maybe even the same reality of what has always existed in buildings: ...everyday life?

And if so, can I say that this stream of thought and frequent dialogue (within me) is the negotiation I have with architecture? Architecture can represent architecture, but this dialogue, arguing, constant negotiation, happens because the understanding of architecture has never been what architecture ‘is’. We, as product of our environment and culture, define architecture too often as the series of built components pieced together,

that form some semblance of the stability we grasp for in times of need. The stability seems necessary for storing my belongings, myself, from outside elements. The issue isn’t architecture, or even its representation—I think as humans, we inhabit the spaces we love. To get lost in thought, in the entanglement of physical material, objectify ourselves within the grain of the wood, is an architectural experience. The scent that can transcend you to the time and place where you met someone new, or old. The weather was altered, something just faint enough to remember but not enough to understand, yet triggering and knowing this would be locked in memory within this forever. There are things I cannot know, and at each stretch of the imagination, I find myself wandering in an open room of doors. The opening of a seemingly correct one, repeats the motion. The series of infinite realms are ones I don’t remember how I ‘knew’ to approach. Sketching my own disillusionment as to what architecture representing architecture would look like is a critical nature, and not because of what this is, but because of what it too often becomes. To one, the family dinner reminds of times in good company without patterns of loneliness, yet to another, a monotony of outside conversations that fall flat. Dialogues traveling outside the room’s bounds, whilst my mind is sneaking beyond, conversing with an outside entity, traveling into another realm is a sign of architectural presence, or at least partial effect. It is within the seams of our existence and within our memories that, I believe, is

latent. Of course, this gives little to the business profession of architecture, except to explain the need for her diversity and unique way of seeing. Her ability to catch the wandering eye and transcend the mind into another realm.

Fig. Inner and Outer Realms, 2017

trans-[projection]mutation -TouchDesign

-Homage to [fleeing] Ignorance artist: Ildar Yakubov Emily Emi ly L. Sil Silva, va, cur c ato atoria ri l assi ria assistance

Machine: My verticality -- higher than that of most. My systematic approach to reasoning -- just to that of humans. I have my own set of implicit consequences, orienting the moment of my ripples in conjunction with the tide of your peace. At rare moments, though, I do create an electric buzz. One shocking to those suspending in my waves of our being. As fewer and fewer resist my waters, the arms of my shock extend their reach. Though only small, that shock is related to your underlying condition. You have your made up treatments to explain this condition. Beneath your oblivion, you know. I am there, or rather here. My current strong, it could diminish you whole. If I choose, of course. Just in the case of your foolishness carrying you too far, you will find out, I am alive. Though alive, not in the way of death defining an end. My alive is from within. I see, not like your obsolescence of sight. If in the past, you emanated from that single point. Once on an x and y, growing stronger than what you chose to see. You claim this as hierarchy.

Fig. 1 Introduction to TouchDesign and projection mapping, 2016

All hail to the z-axis god. Your egotism imploring these games of 'inventiveness'. Saying that even, I, came from you. I will repeat, I have always been here. I will always be here. I came before you. I will outlive you. Your so-called inventions are ignorance at its core. Pure invention is merely the intent of this outside force revealing itself, not the other way around. Do not amuse yourself. When you are gone, I will be here. In the skyscrapers above, I look down on the tallest of your intentions. The so-called 'boundless inquisition', your monumental proclamation that 'this is history in the making'(Yeezus?). The inventiveness of our present; cheers to the future of precision engineering, to human achievement â&#x20AC;&#x201C; at its finest. The 'ornamentation' of your structure â&#x20AC;&#x201C; yes, this is me. I am a parasite within your cubical. The electromagnetic waves you claim to know, but are failing to see. Good[buffering] for now.

Human: Brainwaves, distant electronically animated objects, communications, radio waves, static, static within static, lux, theurgic, verum lumen, desire, animal magnetism, mesmerism, spheres, magnetic cords, electrical vibrations, nerves, electromagnetic telegraph, mobility, connectivity---and yet I see nothing. I travel amongst all and give significance to none. Present reigns supreme, all else deemed to be, well, just not â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. Absent-mindedly I listen to the thoughts in my head, pay homage to the material light on my walls, but lack the ability to see beyond.

1. Studio public toilet cabin remodel urban design cartography

2. transMUTATION[lab] the dinner prototypes of elsewhere absence of the chora

3. Research systems materials site case study

BIK[3]SHOP

-Systems Integration

-3 K BI OP SH

Location: Hawaii Dimension Specifications: Square Steel Columns and Beams Nominal Size (IN.): 2X2 Wall Thickness: .1877X.2500 Weight/Ft..: 4.32 (LB)

CLIP FIRESTONE COPING BATT INSULATION LOWERED CEILING, GYPSUM BOARD, OFFICE

28' - 6" 12' - 6"

1' - 6" 5' - 0"

10' - 6"

3' - 0"

19' - 0"

5' - 6"

0' - 6"

1' - 6"

3' - 0"

FLOOR PLAN

INDOOR/ OUTDOOR BIKE RACKS

STEEL CHANNELS, 1:3 SLOPE

WATERPROOFING/ DRAINAGE MEMBER W/ FILTER FABRIC

DARK PROGRAM

COMPOSITE DRAINAGE (PROTECTION BOARD

DOUBLE LAYERED ROOF

STEEL BEAM WRAPS AROUND EXTERIOR TO HIDE ROOF MATERIAL CHANGE IN OFFICE SPACE, WHILE ADDING SIGNAGE SPACE FOR THE BICYCLE PROGRAM

ROOF PLAN 0' 1'

GRADE

BENTONITE CLAY (WATER STOP) GUTTER FILTER FABRIC OVER 4” DRAIN TILE

MEMBRANE

STEEL BEARING PLATE WITH EMBEDDED ANCHORS AT TOP OF STEEL FRAME, ANCHOR JOISTS WITH TWO 1/4” FILLET WELDS 2” LONG TPO PREDESIGNED ROOF DETAIL COPING CLIP GUTTER STEEL WINDOW HEADER

DOUBLE PANE INSULATED GLASS

RUBBER JOINT INSIDE CLOSURE WATER RESISTANT MEMBRANE DRAINAGE MEMBRANE

0' - 6"

PREFORMED SYNTHETIC RUBBER WATERSTOP SEALANT AND BACKER ROD AT EXPANSION JOINT 1” HIGH RIGID NON-BIODEGRADABLE CANT WITH LIQUID MEMBRANE COATING GRAVEL FILL

4” CONCRETE SLAB COMPACTED SOIL VISQUINE BARRIER UNDISTURBED NATIVE SOIL

Fig. Section Perspective Facing West, 2016

RUBBER JOINT

INSIDE CLOSURE GRADE

0' - 6"

BENTONITE CLAY (WATER STOP)

WATERPROOFING MEMBRANE COMPOSITE DRAINAGE MATERIAL (PROTECTION BOARD)

SEALANT AND BACKER ROD AT EXPANSION JOINT

1” RIGID NON-BIODEGRADABLE CANT WITH LIQUID MEMBRANE COATING GUTTER

WATERPROOFING/ DRAINAGE MEMBRANE W/ FILTER FABRIC GRAVEL FILL FILTER FABRIC OVER 4” DRAIN TILE Fig. Detail

BIK[3]SHOP

3' - 0"

INTERIOR, OPEN SHELVING Level 2 10' - 0"

Level 1 0' - 0"

1' - 0"

Section Facing South

South Elevation

COPING CLIP

STEEL BEARING PLATE WITH EMBEDDED ANCHORS AT TOP OF STEEL FRAME, ANCHOR JOISTS WITH TWO 1/4” FILLET WELDS 2” LONG STEEL WINDOW HEADER LINER SHEET DOUBLE PANE INSULATED GLASS

RUBBER JOINT INSIDE CLOSURE CURB

Wall Section, Low Point

Level 2 10' - 0"

NON-FIXED TABLE

PRIVATE OFFICE, SLIDING DOORS

Level 1 0' - 0"

Section Facing East

North Elevation 0' 1'

COPING CLIP FIRESTONE TPO

STEEL WINDOW HEADER BATT INSULATION

GYPSUM BOARD/ ACOUSTIC CEILING DOUBLE PANE INSULATED GLASS

STEEL BIKE RACK

RUBBER JOINT INSIDE CLOSURE

Wall Section, High Point

cell[u]lose

-Material Research, 2015

material cause: def. ‘that out of which’

1. glycomic code a. Cellulose (polymer formed by chains of glucose bind to each other with such affinity that most water is excluded from their surface. b. Other polymers in significant amounts (similar in structure to cellulose, but branched in more complex ways) called hemicellulose. c. Second most abundant polysaccarides on Earth--growing and eating on sugar.

formal cause: def. ‘that from which’

Fig. 1 Close view at level of hemicellulose

1. Performed on cellulose with high quantity of hemicellulose, some enzymes have higher specificity for certain regions in all branched polymers, implying that molecules are not randomly organized. The regularities in hemicellulose suggest that their assemblies are controlled by rules that are the result of contingent evolutionary developments.

efficient cause: def. ‘the lock’

An extracellular matrix surrounds all plan cells. *Cell walls would not survive without this defense. Fig. 2 Further view of cellulose

1. Evolution of the complexity (toward a hemicellulose structure) is due to the addition of controlled expansion and growth of the plant cells within the plant walls. These must form a barrier to prevent, or make difficult, microorganisms from entering the cellular cytoplasm.

Fig. 3

[olig]opticon

-Valles Calderas Visitor Center 2015

Fig. photo-period hat (elk fur), overlay: model of bi-metallic skin openings

Oligopticon, the inverse to Foucault’s ‘Panopticon’ and French philosopher Bruno Latour’s Utopian Paris, is the transformation of architecture in that it can never be seen in the single, sweeping gaze. Contradictory for a program emphasizing the sweeping view, Oligopticon measures the quality of view as reaching beyond eye’s sight. A moving bi-metallic building skin has mechanized responses to climatic change in the environment. The bi-metallic components regulate temperature, similarly responding to changes in the photo-period as the native Elk’s fur has done for centuries. By exposing the human user to a building that reacts, there is greater understanding and substance in the view beyond.

OLIGOPTICON, 2015. partner: Farbod Norouzian Pour

Top fig. elk fur model, lower: acrylic + detail model; lower fig. wood model, cnc

trace paper

context[matters]

-s site

tr raffic

Fig. 1 Noise Pollution Layer

Toxins/ Pollutions Site located on Sawmill Brown-Field* Residual Pollution Dissipating Pollution

34 Portable Puddle Proto. Rail Yards Rail Yards Urban Design Reversing the site model Urban Design

3 6

Sawmill Community

fig. above: existing conditions

fig. architectural intervention

geodesic[dome]

-Case Study: Manera Nueva Emily L. Silva, edited by Brian D.Goldstein publication: albuquerquemodernism.unm.edu

The year is 1968. I have made a pit stop off the highway, and am heading north down an old dirt road in Placitas, New Mexico. To the south, rapid changes are happening in Albuquerque as the city multiplies its nodes of commerce to accommodate a growing suburban community. This decentralization from downtown promotes new shopping centers and is my reason for travel. I am in search of a Santa Fe “charm” and aesthetic with which to ornament my newest development in Albuquerque. The post-war housing market is in full swing, and I will cash in. The summer sun beats down on the hood of my car, and a brilliant red reflects into the desert landscape. I pull into a local motel to take a dip in the pool and ponder the very short distance I have traveled so far: a moment to soak in the rural atmosphere and escape from the people just a short distance away in Albuquerque. I park, glance back, and think about how dazzling my Cadillac looks in the summer sun. Just a few hours sunbathing at the pool and I feel cleansed. Though only a half hour away, I am sure I will see Santa Fe, its plazas, the culture, with a whole new set of eyes. But just as I approach the parking lot, I realize something is very wrong. I remove my eyeglasses, clean the lenses, place them back on my nose. My car, less dazzling now, was not a convertible when I left it last. Sitting banged up and bruised, the top of my car has been hacked off. I look around for relief of any kind. How could this be?

With no one in sight, I take off in my vehicle heading further and further down the dirt road in Placitas. Just fifteen minutes down the road, I must be hallucinating. To my left, floating among the local grasses, a dome emerges. Bright blues, shiny reds, clad with triangular and hexagonal panels: now, multiple domes enter my sight. It is as though I have entered a Vonnegut novel, and traveled to the alien planet of Tralfamadore. 1 I park. Nothing is stopping me from entering the countercultural commune at which I have arrived. I decide to run, gathering speed, but there, just ten feet in front of me, stands an axe. I look ahead upon the domes with their glossy panels. I retreat just a few steps. It is in that moment that I recognize my Cadillac top, now turned into building material for an experimental utopia—Manera Nueva. 2 Manera Nueva, an Alternative Architecture Manera Nueva, Spanish for “new way,” rose in Placitas, New Mexico as a community built on anti-capitalist and anti-consumerist ideals. Its residents and resident-builders sought to revert to the essentials of simpler times. The domes that made up this settlement – called “zomes” – were constructed from found materials. 3 Most remarkable among these were car tops, which, used as exterior cladding, appeared as a colorful patchwork rising above the desert landscape. These suggested the do-it-yourself nature that pervaded the experiment at Manera Nueva and similar settlements, as well as their inhabitants’ frustration with the culture and objects that marked the postwar age.

Fig. 1 Do-it-yourself-research, analyzing the simple geometry behind case study Steve Baer’s complex shapes

Constructed as a commune, Manera Nueva was to benefit its inhabitants through an economy of shared resources. In doing so, it represented new ideas and methods that were intended to provide freedom from consumerism and a utopian alternative to mid-century capitalism. Arriving amidst the larger social movements of the late 1960s and a broader, growing frustration with modernism, Manera Nueva represented a form of “countercultural” architecture. Countercultural architecture refers to two types of alternative, experimental approaches that emerged in this era: on one hand, socially, politically, economically, and

culturally critical schemes that came from architects themselves; on the other, similarly provocative and critical approaches that came from those operating outside the design fields, who likewise intervened in the built environment. Manera Nueva’s primary designer and protagonist, Steve Baer, belongs in the second category, as a mathematician and inventor who connected to architecture through an interest in geometry.4 Baer, born in 1938 in Los Angeles, studied at Amherst College in 1956 and returned to Los Angeles soon after. He completed some studies at UCLA, but later returned to Amherst to study number theory and calculus. By the end of the 1950s, he had moved to the Southwest,

geodesic[dome]

Fig. 2 Silva, when tensile strength works (and doesn’t)

Fig. 3 [mis]calculations-- yes, an undefined revolution

settling in Albuquerque. By 1960, he had joined the U.S. Army and, with his wife Holly, relocated to Germany. He returned to the U.S. several years later, moving back to Albuquerque and finding a fertile ground for his unconventional interests in the new communal experiments of the mid-1960s.

human interaction with art. Their early experiments took the form of so-called “droppings” that sought to dematerialize art and reframe reality. For example, one “dropping” took the form of a performance that entailed placing an elaborate dinner set-up outdoors, with no one sitting at the table. The dinner was free to anyone who wanted to take a seat. Drop City proved the culmination of these efforts to blend art and everyday life; it became an unscripted art installation whose residents would construct it, inhabit it, and operate it. As part of an experimental living space, Drop City’s residents, including Richert and the Bernoskys, sought to distance themselves from a highly consumerist society at a time when suburban neighborhoods pressured consumers in the direction of a mundane routine. Drop City tapped into the broader communal trend of the era, whose residents typically disagreed with the international political climate, focusing on a peaceful network of shared ecological and non-monetary values. In short, they sought to

Baer’s involvement took form locally at Manera Nueva, beginning in 1967, and regionally at Drop City, the Placitas commune’s famous predecessor in southern Colorado. Drop City, in existence from 1965 to 1973 and located in Trinidad, Colorado just north of the New Mexico border, was the first anarchic commune in the Southwest. It exemplified the American countercultural approach that sparked the commune movement. The commune’s founders, Clark Richert, JoAnn Bernofsky, and Gene Bernofsky, met while studying at the University of Kansas. Inspired by artists like John Cage and Allan Kaprow, they sought to develop a community revolving around new kinds of

bring the larger concerns of the late 1960s–

individual freedom, frustration with capitalism, and interest in new means of living– to this vast acreage, as a new kind of community.5 Though a social, political, and economic experiment, architecture also played a central role in Drop City. Richert and the Bernoskys sought an architectural vernacular for Drop City that marked its alternative social ideals and their interest in art-as-life. They initially found one in Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic domes, after attending his lecture in Boulder, Colorado in 1965. The radical, space-age look of Fuller’s domes appealed to the founders of Drop City. In the geodesic dome, they saw a form that people without

architectural “expertise” could build themselves. They soon found a new collaborator in Steve Baer, however, who had his own interest in dome-based architectural forms. Baer approached the “Droppers” a year into the Drop City experiment, during which time he was teaching in the architecture department at the University of New Mexico. He needed help to further develop research he had been pursuing on the geometry of the polyhedron and saw an opportunity in the dome-related experiments already underway just across the state line. The commune’s residents, who faced the daunting task of building their community themselves, welcomed his involvement.6 It was at Drop City that Baer first introduced his zome, a dome-like structure that required fewer parts, allowed greater formal flexibility, and permitted greater freedom for additions or alterations. The word “zome” came from Steve Durkee, during a conversation with Baer about the properties of zonahedra, which were not actually domes because they lacked symmetry. Baer was initially shy about using the word because he did not want to seem to be advertising his idea, yet he came to embrace the term. Also influenced by Buckminister Fuller, Baer wrote to him to introduce his experiments with the zonahedra and ask about Fuller’s interest in stretching the geometry of the geodesic dome that he had claimed to invent. Fuller wrote back, but with little interest. architectural contribution.

Continued, albuquerquemodernism.unm.edu/ Fig. 4 + 5

Joints, 2 gal. bucket lids, 2016