Contributors: 
Ajmal Aqtash, 
Erin Bartling
, DJ Kim, 
Erik Martinez, 
Roger Reichard
, Richard Sarrach, 
Wendy Tang, and 
Peter VanHage

Artist Sheryl Oring commissioned this project to create an arch for her new exhibition at the McCormack Freedom Museum in Chicago’s Tribune Building.

The design is composed of just over 3000 self-fastening folded plastic modules. The pieces are scripted to seamlessly transition in scale/orientation; i.e. every component is unique.

dsnradio.net

DSN Radio is a blog and podcast focusing on design, architecture, art, music, technology and culture. It brings you stories, ideas, interviews and thoughts on  specific topics.

New York City’s Watershed is a site in crisis. Not only is there a larger demand for water due to the growth of the population, but due to further suburban development in upland areas, water catchment sites are not as hygienic as once thought. Within the Croton Watershed sits Carmel. This suburban town in Putnam County has large basins for water catchment integrated into a developed suburban community. The distributed system currently in place for the dispersal of sewage, though, has a very high risk of contaminating the watershed.

Based on a topological study using sand and cavities to represent the density and area of groundwater contamination risk, a landscape was generated. The areas that are highest upland have the highest ground water capacity and lowest contamination risk, and the areas downland have the lowest capacity and highest risk. This relationship is key to the remediation strategy, by creating a topography that channels effluent water to these specific sites. The exo-landscape is then populated with components that not only allow the material flow relationship but can also be modulated to allow for varying lighting conditions and the ability to contain soil and plants. This passive system is then activated by integrated pumps that draw sewage to biogas processing sites.

Using pastoral ideas native to the development of suburban landscaping, such as sweeping vistas, winding pathways, scenic overlooks and grottos, we develop the landscape to be a desirable recreation site.

Overlaid, layers of sewage, air, and water flow create a new material ecology within Carmel. Since the sites of highest contamination risk are protected, New York City’s Watershed is more protected than previously. Because the system is automated to deposit and process waste into the sites of highest capacity, the system as a whole has a larger capacity for sewage.

This project hopes to blur the boundary between what is considered clean and contaminated, synthetic and natural, and in doing so foster a modified suburban desire. This, through the intensification of existing conditions of a synthetic pastoral and the gizmo begins to challenge the boundaries that enabled the development of suburbia.

Contributors: David Anderson, 
Carla Lores, and 
Kate Moxham

Textile Tabernacle is a deployable fabric-and-frame sukkah. In reference to both its deeply-rooted tradition and its contemporary application in the urban context of Union Square, it provides portable sanctuary in memory of the 'period of wandering'. It is a space for meditation, contemplation, wonder, stillness and reflection. It is a temporary shelter for the body - the human instance of the spirit - which in turn is the temporary abode of the soul. It is a threshold to an ever-present but under-accessed reality, the ephemeral beyond the world of appearances.

Textile Tabernacle is able to be transported, assembled and erected wherever there is a need. The structural frame allows for the sukkah's skinning to be flexible in its application of schach. Its appearance in a dense, urban situation would offer a break from the speed and routine of the city, providing its dwellers with an experience outside of ordinary frames of reference.

The experience of the space changes continuously in the light, as well as dynamically in the act of moving through it. Slipping between its exterior layers, one enters a luminous, organic form that allows the exterior world to dissolve and recede. Zones of darkness and constriction give way to light and openness, encircling and meeting in a central space. The point of central meditation was established as a focus by use of light, rotation and contraction of space. Though large enough to to act as a semi-public space, it provides a very personal and intimate experience.

See Here At Sukkah City

with Michael Cabrera

The research over the course of the project revolved around the question of flexibility. Since its introduction within the discourse of architecture, flexibility has played a critical role in the design strategy of the workplace, learning institution and dwelling. Developed as a concept to embrace the dynamics of a democratic society, spatial flexibility came to mean how a building could adapt to changing use in program over time. Its definition later broadened to include the idea of “choice,” where the individual needs of the users could be instrumental in affecting the temporal qualities of the dwelling. From movable partitions that alter the spatial organization of the interior, to communal spaces whose use is legislated by occupants of the building, to redefinition of surface and void to address the concept of scale, the legacy of flexibility has become an indispensable part of this design.

with Carla Lores

Recycle-A-Bicycle is a community-based bike shop and non-profit organization that provides educational/job training programs and encourages environmental stewardship and everyday bicycle use. Through programs such as Earn-A-Bike, Ride Club, Cycle Craft, and Summer Youth Employment Program, RAB is dedicated to the health and well-being of NYC youth. In this past year alone, RAB has worked with more than 1,000 young people and collectively pedaled more than 10,000 miles. On average, RAB salvages 1,200 bicycles each year from the waste stream, diverting a total of 36,000 pounds of waste from NYC's landfills.

These pieces, built entirely of recycled bike parts were auctioned off as a part of RAB's 15th Birthday Celebration.

All proceeds directly supported Recycle-A-Bicycle's youth and environmental programming.

Recycle-A-Bicycle

attopartners.com​

Web things optimised for Human Behaviour.

We make great web apps, sites, and doodads by caring about the humans at the other end of the internet.

The internet is made of people. Someone clever said that. We help our clients achieve their goals online by focusing on stuff that their sites’ users care about; by treating visitors like they’re smart but busy. It’s based on a simple premise: if we understand a site’s users — their needs and motivations — we can honour their expectations and help our clients achieve their goals.

It’s not about bells and whistles either. 4thought.tv frequently tops Channel 4’s community charts for comments, because we built a simple site that lots of people like to visit every day.

We also helped an independent sports shop around the corner to achieve a 6-figure online turnover in their first year by listening to their visitors.

Don’t get us wrong — our clients were already great before we came along. We just helped them connect with their users a bit better.

with Carla Lores

Research

"The only sane way out of a techno-society is through it, into a newer one that knows everything the older one knew, and knows enough new things to dazzle and dominate the denizens of the older order. That means revolutionizing the interplay of human and object. It means bringing more attention and analysis to bear on objects than they have undergone. It also means engaging with the human body and its affordances, with our health and our ease and our comfort, with our working environment, our home environment, with our lungs, and our skin, and our bones."
-Bruce Sterling, Shaping Things

Due to the decline in suburbs, or rather, a new shift in the populous from the suburb to the city, there exist new crises. These are, a crisis due to environmental change, an infrastructural crisis due to the strain on resources (water, electricity etc.), and a crisis of identity due to the fast- paced advance of technology and shift in culture.

This research is concerned with analyzing both the function of and the cultural significance of the suburb; using a cross-scales approach to examine interpersonal, spatial, programmatic, digital and infrastructural networks within this culture of consumption. We propose an in-depth investigation into division created by the hygienic culture of the suburb and ways in which the gizmo can be fused with the body to break down boundaries. We challenge these peripheral, hygienic zones to make speculation on new modes of sub-urbanism, new kinds of social and political agency, new social outcomes, and new formal and material strategies.

The point of departure was a rigorous translation from an analogue system of registration to a digital means of representation. From an embedded point grid that resided on each of the student’s faces, a digital virtual and a paper physical model was constructed. This investigation was then furthered by making an analogous connection between face and landscape by abstracting it to skin, muscle, bone vs. topsoil, earth, rock. To understand the performiative natures of each of the participating character as well how hierarchies could jump association from character to character meant that the author could then play out a series of scenarios that could shuffle any of the given traits and build out an entirely new set of futures. When speaking of the fold in landscape, it existed as a condition in the form of rolling terra and as a collection of cells that could construct a wrinkle in the skin in its displacement of the adjacent soundings. Here is where the concept of expression and aging were introduced. These became two species of time that would be challenged in their role, not only in the face-scape but also in the act of a material deployment in the form of architecture of recreation. It was rooted in an idea that through a controlled set of variables one could begin to communicate in the face as well as the landscape. Much like an act performed in radical plastic surgery the landscape was cut, stretched, mended, pinched and new constructs were then asked to interface with it and open up latent landing points allowing for the arrival of architecture.

In planning Fulton Street Mall, the focus was creating a haven for pedestrians. This meant eliminating through-traffic by allowing only Buses to enter, widening the sidewalks, and most recently, creating a way-finding system for pedestrians.

In total, there are 11 directories; the design playing off ideas of icons and vernacular within the mall.

Downtown Brooklyn Partnership

Form and Structure

A Wood Word Joint establishes a language of construction that is both concrete and abstract. The joints are examined for structural, tectonic, and conceptual clarity. A word play is embodied within the performative detail.

Space and Time

A volume of Jointed Tales recalls tectonic alliances established within the space of the cube. A ritual of transformation reconfigures the status of meaning and memory. The assembly is puzzling.

Experience and Phenomena

Out of Joint, dislocates the assembly. Anagram- mic possibilities emerge within an expanded field of play. The solid state is aerated.

Inspired by the weaves and folds of fabrics, I created a series of patterns to be digitally printed onto fabrics. Up close, they are finely detailed with linework reminiscent of a topography. From further away, the flat fabric seems to pucker and fold. Each of these is for sale on a variety of fabrics, including organic cotton, canvas, and silk. Please contact me for a ordering details.

Diagram / Topology: The Diagramming of the site is used to fuse park landscape & building envelope; individual & collective activity.

Water / Program: A study of water and the way people engage it merge to form discreet pockets of use.

Force / Span: The necessity for a non-columnar expanse,broughtaboutstructural investigations/inventions, producing structural capacity through surface, geometry and play of forces.

Component / System: Systematic part to whole relationships at numerous scales emerge.