2AeM is a cooperative design effort composed of the 3 young Midwestern-sprung, spread-the world-out, out-and-out Architecture student-architects: nicholas m. reiter, Jessie Wilcox and Peter Nguyen. The team base was originally Milwaukee, WI but since has become a mobile abstraction or a state of mind. 2AeM is sometimes physical, sometimes sober, partially virtual, usually vocal, and all-the-time IN-it.
We are track jumpers, demons, villains and observing you right now. Design is the New and so are the Stakes.
located in washington's methow valley, the rolling huts are several steps above camping, while remaining low-tech and low-impact in their design. designed by oska [olson sundberg kundig allen architects] architects, the huts sit lightly on the site, a flood plain meadow in an alpine river valley.
the huts are grouped as a herd: while each is sited towards a view of the mountains (and away from the other structures), their proximity unites them. they evoke thoreau’s simple cabin in the woods; the structures take second place to nature.
there's been a lot of buzz around this group lately. but i must say, when alison mosshart and jack white get together under the dead weather they're so much more hardcore than the white stripes. the kills are great, and the raconteurs rock, but when you bring them together you better be ready for the ride especially with the support of jack lawrence on bass and dean fertita on guitar.
here's a little preview. the group's first album came out a couple weeks ago [july 14] and i was lucky enough to catch them as they passed through minneapolis - rocking the legendary first avenue.
opening with the epic 60 feet tall the band brought the packed house on a wild ride. working their way through the album, some highlights include a cover of "you just can't win" where jack white came out from behind the drums to vocalize. "cut like a buffalo" and "hang you up from the heavens" were crowd pleasers. and true to rocker form jack white shared his gift of guitar with the crowd - absolutely shredding it to pieces. alison mosshart has an amazing stage presence, climbing all over the speakers, rocking around like a drunkard, she commands attention. after burning through two encores the band ended with "treat me like your mother" before walking off stage arm in arm - a true collaboration.
the new music/promotional video, directed by jonathan glazer, it's pretty straight forward flick, but so entertaining, one of my favs on the album:
recently the finalists were announced for the open architecture challenge; eight team finalists for the 2009 open architect challenge: classrooms. the call for entries spurred over 10,000 participants from architects, teachers and students.
“This initiative invited the architecture, design and engineering community to collaborate directly with students and teachers to rethink the classroom of the future. Designers entering the competition were given a simple mandate: collaborate with real students in real schools in their community to develop real solutions,” explained Cameron Sinclair, the co-founder for Architecture for Humanity and this competition.
some of my favorites include;
adaptable hillside classroom design team: feilden clegg bradley studios & architecture for humanity UK engineering team: buro happold partner/ location: bunyonyi community school, kabale, uganda
classroom for salt pan community design team: rajesh kapoor, prashant solanky, bharat karamchandani, kiran vaghela, gujarat, india partner/location: cohesion foundation, kutch, gujarat, india
house in the wood design team: built form, llc / northwestern university settlement house, chicago, united states partner/location: northwestern university settlement house, delavan, wisconsin, united states
justified architecture in a landscape of transformation design team: arquitectura justa - wolfgang timmer, fabiola uribe, t. luke young, bogota, colombia partner/ location: waldorf educational & social organization, ciudad bolívar, bogota, colombia
a while back i was fortunate enough to be introduced to local artists brent budsberg and shana mccaw exhibiting at the current tendencies show at the haggerty museum. they've done a series of architecturally related installations. relations of scale provoke thought and reveal the artists' creativity and collaboration.
they are curating a show to be opened at the pritzlaff building this weekend [july 24-25]. the building is undergoing renovation and like any advantageous creatives, they're getting they're say in transition. gallery night always makes for a great night out.
if you're swinging to the third ward, hop across the river and see a bit of cream city reinterpreted.
[n]: The Pritzlaff Project
[ l ]: N Plankinton Ave and St Paul Ave
[h]: (One block west of the Milwaukee Public Market)
[d]: July 24, 5:00-9:00pm and July 25, 10:00am-4:00pm
only a few hours ago a tanker, carrying diesel motor fuel [all too ironic], lost control, crashed into a bridge and exploded. a series of explosions followed ultimately ending with a melted overpass. the location; i-75, near nine mile road.
Taking the example of highway further: Perhaps the sky-ways create huge and interesting cathedral-like spaces underneath, the feet of the piles in rivers create habitats for new river life, the new boundary between the cities has given rise to 2 distinct neighborhoods that, like islands of Venice, have a new relationship with one another that a massive long street couldn't do before.
The 2nd problem of Detroit is this: How to get people to "slow down" and actually want to appreciate those experiences below, rather than traveling at 80 to go to a casino and travel back at 80 without fully exercising our sense. We can't build cities any longer for the singular economy of money, but fort the wholistic economies of place-making and human quality. Part of this philosophy is working with what we have, but not in the sense of simply accepting what's given, but accepting that there is always beauty and we need to work to find it (it is not always an outwardly given thing-- you have to work to see it); appreciating it not simply for an abstract value, but for the very real value we can give through the assessment of our real senses.
Part of our team's ambition in these competitions is to explore and discover without the trappings of the university and the safety of the authority of our professors what is is we find important in design. We want to develop our personal outlook and theory on urban environments. Detroit has been both challenging and helpful in this respect. people have all sorts of ideas about how to "bring back" or "bring about" the "old Detroit in a new way" or to "fix" it or otherwise condescend to the current environment or population and culture that exists and develops there now. Our views have through personal dialogue and experience begun to surface in a clear way with special consideration to this problem-- we don't want to be designers that attempt to "solve" a "problem," in fact what we want to do is approach the idea of the city environment with a completely different belief-- that what exists now is beautiful-- not that it could be beautiful "if only," but strongly and adamantly is. The eye of an architect or dreamer, however, is different than someone trained in a different pursuit. It is our job, then, to accentuate and give a means to experience those places of legitimate beauty in order for people who may otherwise flee from what they see as degradation and change to stop, to slow down, to appreciate.
For too long, we feel, the culture of car and road has led to a new culture of speed that does not allow us to experience the most primitive and important aspect of human knowledge and the basis of architecture-- that of the senses. But lets take that example of car and road for a moment to illustrate our outlook. What we are saying is this: "So now, through choice and circumstance, there are a great deal of highways and vehicles that move things and people, that create noises, cut up neighborhoods, create new boundaries and shift views of the sky, earth and water. But you know what? There is beauty." Our job as designers is to create framework in order that people can experience that beauty. That is our challenge and work.
last year local urban farmer, will allen, was awarded the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation's "genius" grant. a prize of $500,000 big ones. working in northern milwaukee he is seeking to educate others about the benefits of investing in local economies. he advocates growing food in a novel way.
allen's growing power organization has six greenhouses and eight hoophouses for greens, herbs and vegetables; pens for goats, ducks and turkeys; a chicken coop and beehives; and a system for raising tilapia and perch. There’s an advanced composting operation — a virtual worm farm — and a lab that is working on ways to turn food waste into fertilizer and methane gas for energy.
i've visited a few times, but never met the man. his operation blows me away every time i step through the doors and into the humidity of his hoophouses. i ran across a new article in the new york times sunday magazine [july 5, 2009]. in it the genius outlines his dreams for his organization, explains his concept of 'food deserts,' and offers insight into a radical shift in social perception.
there's a bunch of videos on youtube, but here's one that explain allen's mission pretty well...
mr. allen said he learned it all from his parents. “we’re having to go back to when people shared things and started taking care of each other,” he said. “that’s the only way we will survive.”
peter gave a preview to peak curiosities a while back. here is a little more light to be shed.
we [ 2AeM ], and our photography friend [ cggaffer ] set out in our trusty 1986 ford mustang... convertible. taking to the roads like ants in a line. breaking through the jams of chicago, surviving gary, crossing into michigan we began to hit some snags...
shortly upon crossing the border our skillful repair of the canvas top (with loads of duct tape) was lacerated by air resistance. enjoying the fresh air we settled back in, three passed out passengers, one deft driver...
awoken by a loud rumble, a little stunned and surprised, we could no longer hear the static slightly resembling jack white's conquest spinning through a yellow portable cd player. looking back gave us our answer. we were shooting sparks down the highway... streaking through the midnight darkness.
we pulled off on exit 239 (black dot_left) and jacked up our car. then we jacked the car more with the gas attendant's spare from her truck. finding the exhaust pipe bent around the rear axle we began applying some elbow grease. an off duty cop and mechanic pulled through.... only the mechanic stopped.
it took a while, but we stashed the muffler and tail pipe behind a group of tall pines. treasure to bring back with us. only one more hour to our campsite.... in hell, michigan. no really, it's the black dot furthest right on the diagram. we camped adjacent to a bike bath in the recreation area... because we drove around for an hour and a half without finding an apparent campsite.
we awoke to confused hikers the next morning. bright and early we set out to stalk detroit.
There is a problem / challenge when approaching the idea of community in a place where traditionally (in a new way) both psychologically and physically no connections amongst people exist. People here speak of connection, but they seek to be an island. But this place is one where the ever argued affect of place on psyche can give testament. The isolation of these separated flats gives no opportunity to engage in public life. One starts to say: Perhaps they don't want public life, perhaps the problem is sociological, not of the built environment. But this is not true. Life long suburbanites of this type know little other possibility. When asked what would be the thing they wish to "fix?" what is their "dream" ? The prospect of more space is voiced-- that is, inside space-- a bigger home. When instead, given suggestions life a wide covered porch to read the morning paper, bushes in back instead of a 7 foot fence, some marker at the front step by the sidewalk to claim the yard, the surprised and excited responses make one realize the possibilities are suppressed by a limited scope and fed (or unfed) by the cycle the environment presents: move into a dark, no-place house disconnected from neighbors, loose touch with neighbors, attempt to talk to neighbors, be deemed "weird" by occupying uncomfortable non-community places, seek community by going to mall or elsewhere but cannot engage there in a legally "private" place, retire to house or fenced backyard, never meeting those moving in next door.
Of course this isn't always the case, but even friendly neighbors must make specific meetings. There is little place to "bump into" each other and pass a few minutes or hour comfortably. These boxes of houses have potential though-- by being the minimal small sanctuaries they are, they can become a core of a much larger system.
diagrams to follow...
A gathering place that simply is-- a moving through place, coupled with places of pride and protection.
okay... so i have to post it. i was reviewing some albums and artists on pitchfork earlier and it reminded me of this video. so the band has divorced themselves from the previous record label - columbia records after an amazing viral album/mp3 campaign. the label still holds all the rights from the six previous albums and have decided to reissue them all with b sides added. columbia is sucking everything they can get riding their mainstream success. the best of flopped, but these b sides may prove intriguing....
"Geometric Informatics scanning systems produce structured light to capture 3D images at close proximity, while a Velodyne Lidar system that uses multiple lasers is used to capture large environments such as landscapes. In this video, 64 lasers rotating and shooting in a 360 degree radius 900 times per minute produced all the exterior scenes." [ google code ]
not only is this an amazing song: haunting, but terrific visuals too: a dream. it brings to mind vaporization and the party scene.
heres a link to the making of video... it gives more information on the above mentioned technologies. our lives are digital... everything is data. it's essentially a direct reflection of where we are in today's society....
In recent years the notion of urban agriculture has been gaining increased currency. Triggered by concerns about food prices, food miles and the environment it is also a response to the desire to live healthier, more sustainable lives. Despite good intentions, large-scale examples are hard to find however recent initiatives such as London Food promise much.
Can we reduce our reliance on imported food? Where is the investment going to come from? How can we change consumer spending habits and promote fresh food? Do we need to be at the brink of catastrophe before urban agriculture is widely implemented?
two conferences are being held rather close together to begin addressing the questions above and dreaming new responses to these implications. one was held on may 27 and has a great review on bldgblog under london yields harvested and i recently stumbled upon another conference to be held on july 1 first called london's conference on urban farming that seeks to build conversation on the same topics...
here's an excerpt from london yields: urban agriculture;
In 2007 Lord Cameron of Dillington, first head of the Countryside Agency, famously remarked Britain was ‘nine meals away from anarchy.’ Our food supply is almost totally dependent on oil (95% of the food we eat is oil-dependent) and if the oil supply to Britain were suddenly cut off Lord Cameron estimated it would take just three full days before law and order broke down. We rely on a particularly vulnerable system. Britain needs to seriously invest in agriculture infrastructure if we are to avoid food crisis.
Cities are the most likely to feel the effects of any food shortages. In 2000 consultants Best Foot Forward estimated that Londoners consumed 6.9 million tonnes of food per year, of which 81% came from outside the UK. With a weakening pound importing food has become increasingly expensive. The transformation of cities from consumers of food to generators of agricultural products not only increases food security but contributes to sustainability, improved health and poverty alleviation.
This exhibition demonstrates various methods by which food production can be incorporated into the urban environment at both an industrial and domestic level. We hope to help stimulate the debate and raise public awareness of our increasingly fragile relationship with the food on which we rely on and the method of bringing it to our table.
stumbling upon this competition project by standard architecture for a visionary competition caught my eye for two reasons: its design ethos; food as a tool supporting community, and its diagrams; the clarity and style are good examples of style and content, both informative and artistic.
there sections were provocative as well... a series of terracing platforms that overlap and float among thin vertical structures. these sensibilities are something we're attempting to work into our upcoming competition.
check out the interview posted at archdaily_ standard partners - jefferey allbrook and silvia kuhle - speak on their philosophy, innovation, the role of technology in architecture, networking, and running their practice.
receiving an honorable mention from the Re:Vision Dallas competition. its design is inspired by the cliff dwellings of the anasazi. food gardens bring the community of 1,000 residents together and provides an alternative form of income when good harvests abound.
"Standard’s radical approach focused on how the residents could potentially gain equity through participation in construction, agricultural, maintenance, education and conservation programs central to the sustenance of the community." [archdaily]
The practice was founded in 1996 by Jeffrey Allsbrook (M Arch USC, studies at the at the Städelschule in Frankurt, Germany and at the Berlage Institute in Amsterdam) and Silvia Kuhle (Architect Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany, M Arch Columbia University). "standard is developing an outstanding body of contemporary work that pursues an aesthetic of minimal clarity with designs that transform their settings" says the LA based architecture firm. they've completed a number of projects for a variety of clients in many places nationally and internationally. check out more of their work at standard architecture
here were a few that caught my eye after a quick cruise.
wildflower centre: i enjoyed their wildflower centre project. it reminded me of a thesis given last year at our school. tree house: their tree house has a seductive ribbon of wood blending into a mass of concrete. m1: m1 looks like a sleek rehab of an old warehouse space.
when elizabeth diller gave a series of lectures this past semester at uwmilwaukee on the high lines project i was intrigue. since then, i've been waiting for the day the new high line would open. the day came last monday [june 8th] phase I opened and i stumbled upon a couple of reviews from the times and archdaily.
both articles praised the project, calling it mesmerizing, radical infrastructure. Each commented on the project's most successful aspects, the new pathway's elevation reveals new and different [but above all, pleasing] perspectives of downtown manhattan.
after beating out 720 teams from 36 countries this fantastic project is being realized. the 1.5 mile long abandoned network of post industrial infrastructure has undergone a massive conversion into what the architect's refer to as a strategy of "agri-tecture" and explain the concept as a surface, "digitized into discrete units of paving and planting which are assembled along the 1.5 miles into a variety of gradients from 100% paving to 100% soft, richly vegetated biotopes,” explained Diller Scofidio + Renfro.
the times article speaks about the new perspectives the conversion offers while maintaining optimism for future uses and success of design.
"the height of the High Line that makes it so magical, and that has such a profound effect on how you view the city. Lifted just three stories above the ground, you are suddenly able to perceive, with remarkable clarity, aspects of the city’s character you would never glean from an office window." [ times ]
the article on archdaily is very in depth. it covers everything from competition to completion. it's host to an incredible amount of images and links.
this is to be an experiment. as I reflect on what we’re doing or why we’re doing it, i can give only a simple answer: “why not…”… this cooperative is born out of circumstance and opportunity. since there is no work out there, we’re "making" work for ourselves. anyone can do this. we’re stumbling into our first steps towards understanding our world, our process and ourselves. how do we work? what do we believe in? we are designers. we are creators. we are the next generation of educated dreamers.
this page will provide the means for record and an avenue for [mass] communication. we’re hoping to peak the curiosities of those we admire and meet to take notice. we are serious. we are wondering. we have dedicated our lives to design.
i’m not expecting much to come of this experiment in a fiscal sense, but i believe the lessons in leadership, ideation, process and production will allow for greater opportunities for innovation later; in a minute, an hour, a month, a year, decades. what will grow out of this will [hopefully] be a newly formed network of young professionals continuously searching and creating meaning and beauty in our world. we are laying the foundation for our futures. we are thinking. we are making. we are exploring…
