Ontologically Oriented Objects

Ontologically Oriented Objects Portland State University School of Architecture

Ontologically Oriented Objects Portland State University School of Architecture

Ontologically Oriented Objects A Portland Design Week Creative Charette to Make the Ordinary Extraordinary A collaboration between Portland State University School of Architecture; Chicago-based design firm Parsons & Charlesworth; and 31 creative teams drawn from Portland design firms, our alumni, and our students In anticipation of natural disaster, the “survival kit” has become a ubiquitous phenomenon, a collection of essential objects bridging the pre- and post-event worlds. The contents of the kit typically support pragmatic needs for the continuity of life, as they should.

But what if the kit also included one object that addressed emotional or intellectual continuity: an object that embodied values, concerns, passions, or memories; an object that could provide solace or hope in a time of uncertainty; a seed or prompt for the re-construction of culture? This is the object we asked the 31 creative teams to imagine, design, and make over the course of seven days during Portland Design Week 2018.

Design teams made up of Portland architects and designers, School of Architecture alumni, and students were encouraged to explore a variety of approaches to transforming the physicality

and meaning of an everyday object: a disused law book. These approaches might include: • Combining it with other things or materials • Dismantling and re-configuring it • Using or deploying it in new, alternative ways • Considering it as a component within an assembly or assemblage • Using signs and symbols to generate new meanings • Using poetic techniques like metaphor to incite meaning • Setting it within a narrative that implies its role in a new scenario Whatever their approach, the teams had to ensure that some identifiable component or characteristic of the original object remain recognizable in the transformed version. Finally, as well as considering the physical transformation, adaptation, and re-contextualization of the object, participants were asked to compose a title and a short evocative text to accompany the object in the exhibition.

The pages that follow reveal the originality, creativity, and thoughtful consideration employed by the design teams in accepting our challenge. We are proud to share them with you.

Clive Knights, Professor of Architecture Andrew Santa Lucia, Assistant Professor of Practice

Dangerous Truths Yi Wang, Andrew Pulliam (M.Arch ’14) Architecture Firm Team We trust media but have discovered there exist different faces of truths. These “truths” can ignore, twist, dismantle, and reconstruct to fulfill our seeking of provocation and desire for arguments.

Disasters can wipe out truths and our trust becomes dangerous.

Beyond what is shown, we wonder what is blacked out.

Nest Ian Flood (BS Arch ’04), Olivia Snell (CPID ’17), Sarah Lundy, Diana Moosman, Allison Plass, David Williams Architecture Firm Team A seal always returns to the coast, just as a swallow returns to its tree. Though their environment may change drastically from year to year, various species ‘come home’ to the same location to mate, reproduce, and begin life once again; resourcing the materials around them to create their ‘nest.’

People Power Bryan Thompson (M.Arch ’13), Katie Barmore-McCollum (M.Arch ’16), Juan Carlos Garduno (M.Arch ’16), Caitlin McGehee, Evan McCullough, John Treber, Jasmeen Ezat-Agha (BS Arch ’15) Architecture Firm Team Our object is a ballot box carved into the laws that previously governed us, repurposing pages to be torn like leaves and recast into places of greater or lesser significance in the service of giving people a voice of hope. Deconstruction as a form of creation, a tool for rebuilding.

Kindred Abel Mekanik (M.Arch ’16), Timothy Ruppel (M.Arch ’16), Alec Perkins, Kelsy Colvin (M.Arch ’15) Architecture Firm Team The law is brought back to something basic. A collection of valued ideals passed down from one generation to the next.

During a disaster, what if you’re disconnected from your child? This project tells the story of what one parent leaves behind: a guidebook to life.

we Nada Maani (M.Arch ’15), Daniel Houghton, Alec Holser, Vig Madhavan Architecture Firm Team we fell we survived we rise

a monument to the fragility of our collective human culture a remembrance of what holds us up a catalyst to rise again in a time of hope

Two-Fold Access Noah Harvey, Julia Mollner (M.Arch ’15), Brendan Sanchez, Tina Taeb (M.Arch ’17), Kayla Zander Architecture Firm Team The written law is not accessible to everyone. Reading and comprehension of the law are not one and the same. In times of devastation, the boundaries of our human perception are reconfigured, exposing the soft nature of language and unspoken social contracts.

Reflection & Projection Paul Cooley, Caleb Couch, Matthew Rusnac (M.Arch ’16) Architecture Firm Team A mirror to remind one of the transience of the present situation and a looking glass to compel one forward, past self and old ways and to a striving to care for the other.

Compendium of Capitulation Blaine Burris, Warren Deloria Architecture Firm Team Even in these unsettling times, this easy plug-and-play, solarpowered compendium of capitulation, ‘West’s General Digest,’ allows you to mete out justice (measured against the United States of America legal justice system) immediately and in situ.

From this pulp pulpit edifice of authority, make adjudication decisions on the spot!

Rebound Kyle Norman (M.Arch ’11), Reiko Igarashi Architecture Firm Team An innocuous, stolid red book begins with a history, through a listing of events, of an optimistic American DNA. Beyond, nestled between two sheafs of paper, sits a container of ash and charcoal.

This redacted history, rendered unrecoverable, can redraw, anoint, or imagine—an assurance that with disaster comes opportunity.

things I wish to remember/ things I refuse to forget Artur Grochowski, John Cline, Rebecca Grace, Tim Bestor Architecture Firm Team We wait.

Clinging to memories.

Lost in dreams.

Only essentials are retained.

Knowledge reduced to ashes, while fighting the cold.

Waiting to rebuild.

Lessons must be remembered A time will come when chaos has subsided, essence replenished.

Until then.

We huddle for warmth.

Clutching the pages I refuse to forget.

Analog String Clock, Post Event (circa 3043) Paper, string, metal, ink Yuki Bowman, Dustin Furseth, & the office of HOLST Architecture Firm Team The clock reads 15 moons and 7 days since the Event, or a year and 3 months of trying to maintain some order and rhythm through the daily stringing of the leaves. 15 moons accumulate into a spider’s web that begins to fill the emptiness of the Hole, bringing us closer to the day of release and rebuilding that they promised within 5 years.

Post-Quake Music Box Alejandra Ruiz (M.Arch ’17), Paul Conrad (M.Arch ’17), Russell ‘Ski’ Wisniewski (M.Arch ’16) Architecture Firm Team When the world started shaking, I thought my life was ending.

When the world stopped breaking, I saw the world descending.

More than strings, More than wood, Not holding him, my hands are no good.

But when the world starts moving, I’ll be there making music again.

(Repeat x2)

Sex Tape Jeni Nguyen (BA Arch ’13), Eduardo Peraza-Garzon (M.Arch ’13), Nita Posada, Julia Ahlet, Amy Devall Architecture Firm Team In pursuit of humanity through humor and hanky-panky.

an un-folding Mike Gorham, Sina Meier, Mart Schaefer (M.Arch ’15) Architecture Firm Team text dissolving, pulp becoming malleable, pressing itself into the moment. ad hoc assemblage made through unmaking. intermediary between force and ground. rhythms solidifying. fibers embodying the ritual of their origination.

Vol.29 Kevin Chavez (M.Arch ’17), Phillip Lopez, Bethany Gelbrich, Nick Hemmer Architecture Firm Team In times of distress, safety, security, and hope are afforded to us by the laws which bind man. These governing laws are given legitimacy from the community that holds those beliefs as true. The only fallibility is the perishable paper they are inscribed upon. The solution: an immutable token to trigger the memory of these uniting values.

just add water Jessica Arnell, Briawna Brooks, Antonio Ramirez, Kagan Reardon, Zane Ross, Kennedy Sarver, Philip Stephens, Ian Watson Student Team We are in the age of banks. Seed banks, sperm banks, DNA banks.

This is the first deposit into the knowledge bank. If disaster should strike and all is lost, just add water!

Misplace, Miss place Ashley McDaniel, Savannah Echols, Jonathan Moua, Tynan Pugh, Mohi Almulaydan, Ana Yocum, Kai Chen, Antonio Crosier, Daniel Baldwin Student Team The disaster ruins the world; it becomes barren. The last green we can see must be well preserved and recorded. Now we only have this soil, but it will be more. This is about the memories of the predisaster world and also the indication of the burgeoning of the new world.

Scarlet Box of Civil Codes Kaeli-Shaye Condes, Kaley Gorman, Xiaoqiang Lin, Gavin McClelland, Zachary Mettler, Rebecca Silk, Luis Soto-Nampula, Nancy Pelayo Colores Student Team While the remnants of the box, much like the society that’s no more, are mangled and intangible, the ideals and code of it are left. Our red box of remembrance, much like a scarlet string around a finger, helps us remember morals, ethics, and codes we hold dear.

Hope Grows in the Ruins of Tomorrow Hanna Fransman, Hannah Mann Student Team Out of a new foundation, there is hope for a revival of life. The memories and history from the past are preserved. They continue to provide comfort and form the shelter for a new beginning.

A new beginning Michael Esposito, Selina Fong, Kody Gunter, Fartun Abdi, Kuan-Chuan Chen, Amelia Budai, Graham Oden, Sarut Choothian Student Team Pages in a book have been ripped off for fuel to stay warm in freezing days. They were cut by a knife 15 times the amount of energy a weak man has. Some pages desired to come off perfectly from a book and the remains denied. Ripped pages became fuel and did their final task in different form.

Law Harp Mohammed Alsaqlab, William Harrington, Jungwho Kim, Jeson Nguyen, Ashley Roth, James Stoner, Tereza Scott, Jackson Toole, Gwen Ward Student Team When we find the social structures and covenants around us crumbling, music reinforces those bonds we need in order to work together; it preserves our knowledge, aids our learning, synchronizes our efforts, and brings us together in a shared experience that bypasses the boundaries of language and cultural difference.

Untitled Monica Alward, Kaylee Barnett, Regina Batiste, Martin Hsieh, Monserrat Vazquez-Fonseca, Alexandro Lewis, Ben Stickney, Justin Durrie Student Team This here Journal of the National Association of Referees in Bankruptcy is a book of rules. It was written in the year 1948 on the planet Earth by civic-minded men with names like Milton and Howard and Walter. They believed in the American Dream and in playing by the rules. They loved their children and are long dead now. Kurt Vonnegut wrote in 1965, about love and money and the American Dream. He wrote, and it’s worth remembering, perhaps now more than ever, “There’s only one rule that I know of, babies...”

Metamorphosis Aaron Lange, Junyoung Lee, Mohamed Issa, Alaa Ighneim, Xiaofei Liu, Mohamed Fakhry, Andrea Pahua-Real, Quinn McCallum Law Student Team Through time, nature has helped all creatures and creations to evolve, survive, and even metamorphose. In today’s world, it has been obvious that the challenges our societies are facing are more controversial and more difficult to solve with just an imaginative idea, a wonderful speech, or an inspirational word. It takes more than one synapse to help the brain function at its best, and it takes more than one brain to put a building together, or write a book as we all know. Hence, why not create a body that develops its own protective barrier, just like the rejuvenation of our cells after we suffer from an illness, or the coagulation of a clot of blood after an injury. Architecture has evolved to develop terms like fireblocks, flashing, insulation, bracing, and all these layers that make a building stand tall, and stand strong, and resist the challenges that creatures and nature tests it with. Whether it is a fire, a seism, an earthquake, or a storm, the layers are there to protect it from all these adversities. Thus, our question is, why not create a body that naturally develops its own protective skin, so that it can resist, survive, or even metamorphose every time it is challenged by nature or by human beings?

Time Capsule for Preservation of Mankind David Lawrence, Nate Mason, Madeline Peck, Matthew Dascomb, Xuejun Rao, Tawaab Gouhar, Daniel Barker, Bijeta Choudhury Student Team Ancient cultures of preservation of foods and human brain.

Carved out book - to make a box + Aluminum foil - wrapping for safety + Bottle - faith in my past technology + Noah’s paper ark - protector of culture :: key information about city planning which could help to create new civilization after disaster (i.e. Mohenjo-daro)

We Can...

Laura Estrada, Carlie Donnelly, Kenyatta Marcelous, Mindy Li, Joseph Vera, Robert Wilson Student Team We think of things as things, but we create with emotion; our connection to past, present, and future is what leads from destruction to home. Our object has Past, the beginning chapters, Present, the destruction that we are trying to Rebuild, and Future, which is blank in our hands but...it is in our hands to create what is next.

Memories and Truths Simone Toimil, Hlee Huer, Cameron Svenson Student Team This is a manifestation of memories and truths of a moment.

It explores sensory awareness and the unfolding of time. It is a collector and giver, waiting for you to add to its pages, to connect you to your self in the present and others in the past and future.

Mysterious Animal Tyler Broman, Chi-Yu Chuan, Ben Hebert, Joel Kaufmann, Rudy Chon, Mykalene Piva, Griffin Lutz, Molly Esteve Student Team VERTICALITY: the essence that makes us uniquely alive.

Our artifact Our body, perception, memory Spiral upward, Gathering, Our mysterious animal.

Constructed Warnings Madeline Belgrave, Molly Jacobs, Trenton Lundsten, Yanet Orozco Gomez, Ximena Quiroz Bejar, Jose Sanchez, Molly Shine, Courtney Wolff Student Team Law is a construct. Rules that humanity has created are treated as objective Truth, although they were created by man, sometimes irrationally. This machine offers future humanity an opportunity to arbitrarily choose “constructed warnings” from the past—advice to avoid the pending disaster we’ve created in the present.

Stoptime Brandi Swingle, Brooks Thomson, Harina Ainaga, Nelson Wu, Sean Thurston, Chelsea Kight, Robert Balding, An Nguyen Student Team When time stops so do the rhythms of life.

The past has no sound, a new sound will rise from a new past, the rhythm continues

Untitled Hannah Nickel, Benjamin Lopez, Melisa Flanagan, Kevin Jones, Bryan Ortiz, Thomas Fenter, Jocelyn Reynolds Student Team A ball to represent play and distraction from devastation. We decided to create toy balls from the book to represent hope, and new life that resurfaces from the tragedy of natural or human disasters.

These toys represent not only hope and new life synergy but a correlation of happiness from items made anew from the artifacts of the past.

Untitled Zoe Bailey, Nathalie Hutchinson, Roark Beisel Student Team

The Exhibition Each of the 31 participating teams, made up of architects, designers, architecture students, and alumni of the Portland State University School of Architecture, had one week to transform a disused law book (either a West’s General Digest circa 2014 or 2015, or a Journal of the National Association of Referees in Bankruptcy circa 1950s) into a new object which would express something essential and intangible to carry into a post-disaster world.

On Friday, April 20, 2018, the School of Architecture hosted a public exhibition and critique of the transformed objects, led by guest critics Jessica Charlesworth and Tim Parsons, designers and artists of the Chicago-based firm Parsons & Charlesworth.

The event drew members of the public, the academic community, architecture and design professionals, and students, who came to see how the teams had approached the challenge in a wide variety of innovative ways. The following pages depict the transformed objects on display in the School of Architecture in Shattuck Hall that day.

Acknowledgments:

Thanks to all participants:

Thanks go to Jessica Charlesworth, Clive Knights, Tim Parsons, and Andrew Santa Lucia for devising the proposition of transforming a readymade object as the focus of a collaborative charette.

Yi Wang, Andrew Pulliam; Ian Flood, Olivia Snell, Sarah Lundy, Diana Moosman, Allison Plass, David Williams; Bryan Thompson, Katie Barmore-McCollum, Juan Carlos Garduno, Caitlin McGehee, Evan McCullough, John Treber, Jasmeen Ezat-Agha; Abel Mekanik, Timothy Ruppel, Alec Perkins, Kelsy Colvin; Nada Maani, Daniel Houghton, Alec Holser, Vig Madhavan; Noah Harvey, Julia Mollner, Brendan Sanchez, Tina Taeb, Kayla Zander; Paul Cooley, Caleb Couch, Matthew Rusnac; Blaine Burris, Warren Deloria; Kyle Norman, Reiko Igarashi; Artur Grochowski, John Cline, Rebecca Grace, Tim Bestor; Yuki Bowman, Dustin Furseth, & the office of HOLST; Alejandra Ruiz, Paul Conrad, Russell “Ski” Wisniewski; Jeni Nguyen, Eduardo Peraza-Garzon, Nita Posada, Julia Ahlet, Amy Devall; Mike Gorham, Sina Meier, Mart Schaefer; Kevin Chavez, Phillip Lopez, Bethany Gelbrich, Nick Hemmer; Jessica Arnell, Briawna Brooks, Antonio Ramirez, Kagan Reardon, Zane Ross, Kennedy Sarver, Philip Stephens, Ian Watson; Ashley McDaniel, Savannah Echols, Jonathan Moua, Tynan Pugh, Mohi Almulaydan, Ana Yocum, Kai Chen, Antonio Crosier, Daniel Baldwin; Kaeli-Shaye Condes, Kaley Gorman, Xiaoqiang Lin, Gavin McClelland, Zachary Mettler, Rebecca Silk, Luis Soto-Nampula, Nancy Pelayo Colores; Hanna Fransman, Hannah Mann; Michael Esposito, Selina Fong, Kody Gunter, Fartun Abdi, Kuan-Chuan Chen, Amelia Budai, Graham Oden, Sarut Choothian; Mohammed Alsaqlab, William Harrington, Jungwho Kim, Jeson Nguyen, Ashley Roth, James Stoner, Tereza Scott, Jackson Toole, Gwen Ward; Monica Alward, Kaylee Barnett, Regina Batiste, Martin Hsieh, Monserrat Vazquez-Fonseca, Alexandro Lewis, Ben Stickney, Justin Durrie; Aaron Lange, Junyoung Lee, Mohamed Issa, Alaa Ighneim, Xiaofei Liu, Mohamed Fakhry, Andrea Pahua-Real, Quinn McCallum Law; David Lawrence, Nate Mason, Madeline Peck, Matthew Dascomb, Xuejun Rao, Tawaab Gouhar, Daniel Barker, Bijeta Choudhury; Laura Estrada, Carlie Donnelly, Kenyatta Marcelous, Mindy Li, Joseph Vera, Robert Wilson; Simone Toimil, Hlee Huer, Cameron Svenson;Tyler Broman, Chi-Yu Chuan, Ben Hebert, Joel Kaufmann, Rudy Chon, Mykalene Piva, Griffin Lutz, Molly Esteve; Madeline Belgrave, Molly Jacobs, Trenton Lundsten, Yanet Orozco Gomez, Ximena Quiroz Bejar, Jose Sanchez, Molly Shine, Courtney Wolff; Brandi Swingle, Brooks Thomson, Harina Ainaga, Nelson Wu, Sean Thurston, Chelsea Kight, Robert Balding, An Nguyen; Hannah Nickel, Benjamin Lopez, Melisa Flanagan, Kevin Jones, Bryan Ortiz, Thomas Fenter, Jocelyn Reynolds

Thank you to all the students, alumni and local practitioners for their enthusiasm for this experiment in collaboration, idea generation, and creative making.

Gratitude is directed to Portland Design Week for including the event in their 2018 program and to the Multnomah County Law Library for generously providing the volumes.

The design and production of this book have been made possible by the efforts of Rachel Sairio, Karen O’Donnell Stein, and Clive Knights.

published by School of Architecture, College of the Arts Portland State University P.O. Box 751 Portland, OR 97207 architecture@pdx.edu www.pdx.edu/architecture September 2018 ISBN 978-0-9718903-4-3

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