On Collaboration

What is the nature of your collaboration?
For the last four months I have been collaborating with artists and architects from Syracuse University on a design-build project located at 601 Tully Street in the New West Side of Syracuse, NY. The building faces a condemned (but still used) elementary school and a rather large park/playground.

How is it different than your individual practice?
I don't think I've ever collaborated on anything relevant.
Well, I guess that I've never before collaborated on something of this magnitude or importance.
Of course there's been some music that nobody's ever heard (or ever will hear) and then all the various assignments and things for school but never been a part of something so tangible.
And certainly never been part of such a big, talented group like this one.

What, if any, are the effects of the collaborative effort on your individual art practice?
Positives:
-I get things done
-Inspired by those around me
-Learning how to work with people
Negatives:
-As a student of Environmental Policy and Urban Environmental Science (lacking both architecture and artspeak), it was at first difficult for me to know what my place was in the class and where my skill set fit in.
-Setbacks annoyed me. Interruptions in the flow of ideas and dialogue during class time were something I had to learn to deal with.
-Was surprised to learn that I immediately relinquish my input to an idea if I feel as if someone else's vision/justification is stronger or, somehow, better.
Therefore:
I've found that collaboration works for me mostly due to being socially responsible. If others are counting on me, I will always pull through. I can't say the same for my individual art practice as I have literally dozens of half-finished projects laying around my apartment and cluttering my hard drive. I think that if I apply social or group responsibility to the projects I've begun solo, it would really benefit me and help me actualize the half and mal-formed piles cramping my creative life. I've learned that I need some "good" guilt.

Collaboration

The nature of my collaboration is that everyone involved needs to have equal input on the task being completed. When I collaborate I like to consult the group members before making a decision on a project.

It isn’t very different than my individual practice because architecture is based on collaboration. Whether it is between other architects or different disciplines, architecture thrives on collaborating and reaching to other professions in order to thrive. It involves other disciplines in order to be a successful product at the end. Since it takes so much work to design a building, collaboration is very important and necessary.

The effects of collaborative effort on my individual practice are multiple. When working in an architecture firm, you are always in a team with multiple individuals that have different expertise in different aspects of the project. Communicating with them and discussing the work is very important in the success of the project.

collaboration or not?

it is hard to say if i enjoy the collabration or not?

though out this class, or many other collaboration projects i have done in the past. i often come to the feeling that i wish i am working with only myself.

However, collabration, working as a team, is what keep me feel alive in Syracuse. the only reason that i stay. without this notion of shareing, i wouldn't survive.

So, there is this love and hate condition always goes on when i talk about collaboration.

as much as i know how hard is to make a team work together, i guess to not like collaboration is probabely the bueaty of the collaboration. because i know a good design usually comes out with a mind of struggle, or a ballance between let-go and not let-go. and that is a condition that I tend to avoide when I desing on my own. Therefore, a collabration creats a environment that allows me to use my dislikeness to push me in a diraction that i am not comfortable with. which i believe is a good thing.

Pei

collaboration short and sweet

what is the nature of your collaboration?

how is it different than your individual practice?

what, if any are the effects of the collaborative effort on your individual art practice?

Our 601 tully collaboration and class has been a great addition to a stressful semester. Being able to come to class and work through problems that will some how some time have an effect outside of school is refreshing, even when it takes hours and hours to arrive at a simple decision that later gets reversed, rediscussed and redecided leaving us at our original conclusion. Sometimes you think it'd be better or faster to work individually but other times you realize the progress we make as a group is worth making slowly. I've enjoyed getting the chance to learn from non-architecture students and architecture students I wouldn't have known if I didn't take this class.

The nature of 601 tully collaboration is design-oriented, neighborhood situated, communication heavy, experimental and experientially rewarding.

Individual architecture student work doesn't let you see outside perspectives or the ways people react to how you communicate the way that 601 tully collaboration has.

Introduction to new perspectives and the realities of interacting with a new physical environment and community enrich the academic experience. Real and collaborative projects make it harder to work individually on projects that won't leave the classroom except in portfolios.

Process Images...

Ideas for what to do with (2) 15" x 32"s - Build 1.5 Stow-away-Stools...

and play with color...

bike dispenser

not that we should have one, butttttt it's cool:

Bike Dispenser

Agnes Denis Wheatfield in Battery Park Landfill

this is what we should do on the lot next door to 601 Tully!

floor, etc.

http://www.pietheineek.nl/en/collection/scrapwood/art.nr.3855h

oh where oh where have my third year's gone

Relevant Art: room within a room and material/value

A different kind of room within a room:

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/10/17/arts/design/20081018_FRIEZE_SLIDESHOW_6.html

and another room within a room:

here


Arist Susan Collis:
Precious materials inlaid/disguised/inconspicuously used in her objects/installations...look at the materials listed in the titling of the works:

a detail of one of her pieces:
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/10/16/arts/20091017-frieze-slideshow_8.html

her gallery with more examples of her work:
http://www.seventeengallery.com/index.php?p=2&id=16&iid=8

I was reflecting on the semester and the ideas and concepts we have discussed as a group and it made me think about my gut instinct. It is interesting how doing something as a group can change that feeling. Sometimes when i think about different concepts we have proposed to do or ideas we have shot down i think about how i agreed/ or disagreed with everyone. Now when sitting by myself i think how i would not agree with myself right now. Working creatively in a group of such diverse people, as we are, is a new concept to me, and i am really enjoying the process. As i reflect i think about the future and how i would like to try to take what i have realized from this semester and try to think and listen to my own instinct when interacting with the group.

Materials Group. Meet at 2:45 at Warehouse Lobby on Wed.

Lighting for Gallery Boxes?//

http://www.lighting.philips.com/in_en/global_sites/led_lighting/information/oled/shop.php?main=gb_en&parent=1&id=in_en_led_lighting〈=en

Ridiculously Expensive, Unfortunately.

Notes on materials found today

Materials we saw and see potential in:

Casement windows - Sherman: make two big cuts in exterior walls? more likely to use for interior partition walls/dividers

Wood flooring - Sherman: about 600 square feet in big room we toured, probably 1000 sf in entire building or about one floor's worth (of 601 tully), create different patches of floor with different materials on first floor

Orange plastic freezer door flaps (can't find a name for these anywhere) - Sherman: use as a door before a door, could be used outside somehow

Gray tile - Sherman: at least 40 sf worth, use in the kitchen or bathroom? maybe too expected, make the tiles into a blackboard/whiteboard, use a floor or wall surface, install with the ridged back facing out instead of smooth tile but can that work

Reflective sign material - Andrew's dad: use outside as trim, use in bathroom, use to line the gallery boxes

Wood shelves/trays - Restore at case supply: about three dozen on first look, use as shelving on interior wall either upright as shallow shelves/display or horizontally for depth, combine to make moving gallery wall/bookshelf, alternate shelf and surface

Electrical wire - Case supply: a possibility for south wall or fence?

Glass blocks - use in a different way or too corporate?

Glasses - Restore at case supply: use as light fixtures by cutting bottoms off or put LEDs inside, make into a wall by placing right side up and upside down side by side, insert into a wall as small circular windows to look through or like a glass block wall except with circles, make into low hanging lights, place into a frame and hang from ceiling

Granite - Restore at case supply: alternate with wood slats for flooring

Ducts and/or pipes - Case supply: cut to different heights and use outside as planters, too industrial?


Possible themes: every room as an individual collage (example - amsterdam nord), all materials used as a multiple of some dimension, everything at kid's scale, and translucent vs solid

Do I see a fence in all of that??

Materials?

So I didn't bring anything back other than some reflective because I was in a rush....but I did take pictures of all that the sign industry has to offer.

painting the exterior

hey so i was looking up directions on how to paint the outside of a house and this web site is so in detail.

http://paintingyourhouse.info/extredet1.htm

artist interested in Art, architecture, space, construction, intervention..

http://joqnelson.com

Jo Q. Nelson

check out his "past work" too. I think there are some interesting things to look at.

Please femember tp post notes from Wed class on your material samples.

Park(ing)

Grass as Parking Surface.

http://www.invisiblestructures.com/brochures/GPGV_brochure.pdf

MLab, but better

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/wayoflife/03/05/heroes.efren.penaflorida/index.html

Green Walls

An article on the green wall system we have been talking about + some decent pictures of them in action.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/business/energy-environment/19WALLS.html?hp

No Homo

http://current.com/items/91120515_thats-gay-no-homo.htm

Re-Store

http://www.syracuserestore.org/

here is a place we should to visit some time.

Quotes think about from Miwon Kwon's One Place After Another

"To display sculpture to its best advantage outdoors, it must be set so that it relates to the sky rather than to trees, a house, people, or other aspects of its surroundings. Only the sky, miles away, allows us to contrast infinity with reality, and so we are able to discover the sculptor's inner scale without comparison."
- Henry Moore, pg. 63

"...entry [into a work] is facilitated when the public percieves the work as performing some useful task, whether it is simply that of shade and seating, or something even remotely associated with the sense of leisure. To be guided through space in a way that rewards the passer-by is of prime value to the public."
- Janet Kardon, from the catalogue essay for the 1980 exhibition "Urban Encounters: Art Architecture Audience", pg. 66

"...site specificity has been both a means to move beyond sculpture and simultaneously a "medium" through which to serve its 'internal necessity'"
- Miwon Kwon, pg. 78

"...Tilted Arc's removal was a discrediting of a perticular model of public art - or a particular model of site specificity as I would insist - one without obvious utilitarian payoffs, one that critically questions rather than promotes the fantasies of public space as a unified totality without conflicts or difference... the sculpture's removal from Federal Plaza, when viewed as a triumphal rejection of "high art" by "the people" also signified an implicit validation of the community oriented approach to public art... The controversy [itself cast] as an exemplary instance of "the conventions of artistic expression... com[ing] into conflict with public opinion."
- Miwon Kwon, pp. 79-82

"...while there may be disagreements among different groups over the specifics, the dominant priniciple or operative basis of community-based site specificity is the presumption of a unity of identity between the artist and the community and between the community and the art work. Indeed, the commonality of this belief is the source of [disagreements in communities]...emphasis on the social stems from the belief that the meaning or value of the art work does not reside in the object itself but is accrued over time through the interaction between the artist and the community. This interaction is considered to be integral to the art work and equal to the significance (it may even be thought of as constituting the art work)..."becoming one," no matter how temporary is presumed to be a prerequisit for an artist to be able to speak with, for, and as a legitimate representative or member of the community. "
- Miwon Kwon, pp. 93-94

"...a central objective of community-based site specificity is the creation of a work in which members of a community - as simultaneously view/spectator, audience, public, and referential subject - will see and recognize themselves in the work, not so much in the sense of being ctitically implicated but of being affirmatively pictured or validated... rather than art works that are seperated or detached from the space of the audience, which reinforce social alienation and disaffection, once should sponsor works that reassure the viewing subject with something familiar and known... Therefore, the task of "reassur[ing] the viewer with an easily shared idea or subject is best accomplished when the idea or subject of the art work is determined by the community or better yet if is the community itself in some way."
- Miwon Kwon, pp. 95-96

"The investment of labor would seem to secure the participants' sense of identification with "the work" not through an iconic or mimetic identification but through the recognition of its own labor in the creation of, or becoming of, 'the work.'"
-Miwon Kwon, pp. 96-97

"A culturally fortified subject, rendered whole and unalienated through an encounter or involvement with an art work, is imagined to be a politcally empowered social subject with opportunity (afforded by the art project) and capacity (understood as innate) for artistic self-representation (= political self determination)."
- Miwon Kwon, pg. 97

Business Plan Competition- Jan 22 deadline

http://www.creativecoreny.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=71&Itemid=

reposting just as a reminder on our list of things to do

Garden ideas....

Saw this for another class...Some interesting ways to think about water.

http://www.4culture.org/publicart/project_profile.asp?locID=17

UPDATE/PLEASE READ

Dear Class,
We have spent a good part of the day getting cost estimates for this cafe funknwaffles scenario and we are unable to get a firm enough commitment from them and it is well above 100k more than what I have already raised and have in place.

You have worked really hard and are an inspiration and a wonderful model for this kind of work and it is an honor to be working together. My top priority is that we get this building built within the scope of what we have and what we have designed so well together already.

So edit back one week and this is where we stand now and as we move forward:
*one stair
*30 people assembling downstairs
*10 upstairs
*downstairs is classroom space and large counters for "exchanges" and rotating businesses
possibly a transformable space that can be divided into tow - or create a private classroom space and more public space
*no cafe
*two bathrooms - 1 up one down
*room within a room upstairs
*3 offices upstairs
*efficiency kitchen (sink and frig)

Southwall as is.
I really feel we were moving too far from our mission and our community partners with this cafe on the table.
Our focus is on education, our community partners of Stephen Parks, Say Yes, Folwer HS and Gear UP and jobs and involvement of neighborhood students. Now and long term.

Whichever original group you were in please continue to flesh out the details - and begin to think about materials and collaborative processes.
Back to work and carry on.
Email me if you have questions.
Marion

so i was looking at pictures of all different houses and color of houses and these two really made me think of things we should think about doing with our house along the lines of playing with color like we talk. The white building made me think what if we drew a line where shadows wher created at one point of the day.. and then colored that area in with a lighter or darker area so that we would not just be paying with sides of the building but with the building as a whole and an image of it at different times of the day playing with shadows and what time it really is in the day when viewing it.

this image really played on different shapes of the building and forground and background. I thought it was interesting to look at.

This Wednesday at 6:30 at Redhouse

601 tully=BNY???

http://www.thirteen.org/thecityconcealed/2009/01/26/inside-the-brooklyn-navy-yard/

So I was watching this video on the Brooklyn Navy Yard and I came across this image on the video.

Teachers from Blodgett give feedback on lot

Jermaine Soto, site coordinator at Blodgett school, asked teachers and administrators what they thought about incorporating the lot at 601 Tully with their curricula. His initial efforts elicited some pretty positive feedback, much of it corresponding directly to discussions we've had!
(Contact information for responders forthcoming.)

- Social Studies
a) NYS Standard - Economics - farming, cost of raising crops (vegetables, fruits, flowers etc) and profit - how much can they sell. - developing a farm stand.
b) Science - ecology /environmental science/biology.

- It’s possible, with proper planning, I could have [601 Tully] be part of a social studies class. I could bring my classes to help with the design and maintenance of the garden, [with] weeding and tilling.

- I love the idea of having the students involved in gardening. It's healthy on so many levels. I've often thought that we have a unique gardening opportunity in our internal patios (in addition to the 601 site) but have never been able to pursue it. I would hope they could be utilized, perhaps renovation could address options.

- I am not a classroom teacher but I see lots of applications. The science curricula at most grade levels includes plants. You could tie in with math; graphing the growth [cycles of plants], plotting out where to place the plants, measuring out distances... Students could [also] write about the experience, [as] steps in a process.

- Years ago Cicero Elementary started a garden and the whole school was involved...someone may want to contact them to find some ideas that worked well.

- I think that's a terrific idea that would have many benefits for the community, especially the students. If the staff knows about this ahead of time, it allows for including it in the curriculum all year long. For example, science and math can be taught using the garden as a "tool" (couldn't resist the pun-sorry!) I'm sure there is a lot of info online about other community gardens to help in the planning. As an ESL teacher, I welcome any educational endeavors that are hands-on, and it is more meaningful for all students, too.
Probably the main concern would be vandalism of the garden, but I think other similar projects would have suggestions for this. I also think there are a number of groups to pull volunteers from, such as garden clubs, retired seniors, etc, whose members would really enjoy helping children make a connection with nature. In fact, the National Wildlife Federation (I'm a member) offers guidance on bringing children closer to the natural world.

- When I read this I automatically thought about the fruit stand that was at the State Fair this year. High school students volunteered their time to sell fruit at the fair and also at the Syracuse Farmer's market. The market now accepts food stamps. I have 2 ideas.
1. When the garden is plentiful, possibly selling the fruit/veggies to the community and/or
2. Having students and/or the community volunteer their time to till the garden for 2 hours a week and in return they can take a small bag of veggies home with them.

Patricia Phillips, Dean of RISD visits 601 Tully

Dean Phillips from RISD and Hllar and Mario

Patricia Phillips, Dean of Graduate Stidies at RISD visiting 601 Tully and reviewin plans.

Neighbors

Students present research of typologies they observed in neighborhood

First Community Focus Group, September 2009

Montages_Eric

Assignment 1

Assignment 3

Assignment Interior

Design of South Facade as of 11/1/09

Eric's collage interpretation of 601Tully through the eyes of Rick Lowe.

I have been doing some color studies of the neighborhood. in the pictures i post i am looking at the colors chosen by house owners, how the colors of the buildings next to each other play off each other, and the houses that have multiple colors on the same surface.

DeBuild Materials

http://d-build.org/wordpress/

The COE has a project aimed at de-constructing, rather than demolishing vacant houses; could it be possible to work with them to source local/recycled materials?

the room within a room

I was thinking about the warehouse on Amsterdam NOORD that Yun Pei and I saw this summer - whereby there were individually designed studios within the big warehouse - that each held distinct design vocabularies. Rather than having the room within the room upstairs match and blend in - why not design it such that it is entirely different from the outer shell. See attached fotos of Amsterdam NOORD; Art City.

More images for our "finishing the cube" and "smashing the cube" discussion

Janine Antoni's Gnaw

Seating/Table Research from Marion

hp01 tafel

see:

http://hivemodern.com/pages/products.php?view=sub_product&sid=3503&cid=399