STUDIO STATEMENT the PROGRAM: This semester will focus upon the design of an institute that is a non-profit organization dedicated exclusively to supporting independent documentary-artists[1]--intending to offer assistance in bringing their films, audio and visual representations to completion. The Forum will provide a nurturing, contemplative environment while also providing a place to connect with others and make work public--to create a working space for individuals to retreat, think and develop their work AND to create a public space to disseminate the work in society. It will serve as a retreat for photographers, writers, video-documentary artists, visual artists, audio-artists, and interdisciplinary artists along with special invited guests. As part of this class, we will watch and discuss several documentaries in an attempt to relate to these artists and their creative processes and products[2]. The reason I have chosen this program is to offer students a building type that requires the architect to be empathetic and thoughtful about how to create a protective and sublime space for the individual; while also creating an architecture that serves to educate and reveal issues in persuasive, public ways. This project proposes a place of retreat amidst a diverse, complex urban landscape. The student’s task will be realizing and developing degrees of separation—architectural intent will be born out of that understanding.[3]
the SITE: I am proposing a couple of sites in Brooklyn of New York City. (Although not mandatory, I hope you will choose to join me in a trip to NYC, where we will visit the proposed sites and other significant contemporary works of architecture.) The NYC site will provide the rich, urban context that holds diverse interests and complex relationships –these will help motivate, challenge and generate ideas that inform the student and their ideas about how to best incorporate this particular program into its context. studio FOCUS: This studio presumes that it is possible to make places that can give a sense of grace to life—and believes that this matters. Juhani Pallasmaa proposes that “the detachment of construction from the realities of matter, climate and craft further turns architecture into stage sets for the eye, devoid of authenticity of matter and construction.”[4] To counter that, we will proceed with the belief that architecture is capable of framing and providing the opportunity for us to realize our basic human condition, relate us to community, and strengthen our capacity to perceive through engagement with natural forces, tectonics and materiality. It will be our task to connect the intangible, authentic experiences of our daily lives with tangible form—this discussion will motivate the many iterations of study we will take on. Those who enroll in this class should be prepared for daily pin-ups in large and small group discussions. Also, they need to be willing to be self-reflective and motivated to rigorously ‘muscle’ the form to reveal the intangible, in ways that we can relate and to a high degree of detail.