Temporary architectural installations are all around us. The houses we live in, the roads and bridges we traverse, and the places we worship and mourn. Human constructions can last thousands of years, but on some level we quietly acknowledge that constructions are simply a stage for culture that will one day see an end. Our constructions serve us through their temporality and locality. Our diversity of shelter mirrors our diversity of culture; a panoply of houses for the body and soul. To locate ourselves in this vast temporality, we can identify our own communities. We are linked by time and space to our dwellings.

What is Agency? Two very motivated grad students here at RISD developed, proposed, and then received permission to teach a grad studies class- aptly named `Design Agency’. Our first task? To define what agency is. As designers, we have abilities (learned and inherent), or a set of competencies that allows us to problem-solve in a way that others might not be able. We also have vision; original ideas and creativity that are channeled through our abilities. Finally, we have an impulse to act. As designers with abilities, vision, and a desire to use both, we can be a catalyst for change.

• ·         Consider MATERIAL and ENERGY FLOWS in all design
• ·         Human AGENCY is a priority (humans are not a `factor’)
• ·         Deliver VALUE TO PEOPLE, not people to systems
• ·         Treat CONTENT as something we DO, not something we’re sold
• ·         PLACE, TIME, and CULTURAL DIFFERENCE are positive values, not obstacles
• ·         Focus on SERVICE, not things

“The English travel writer Bruce Chatwin wrote about a group of white explorers who were trying to force the pace of their African porters. The porters, within sight of their destination for the day, sat down and refused to move. As they explained to their frustrated employers, ‘‘we are waiting for our spirits to catch up with our bodies.’’-  John Thackara, In the Bubble: Speed

• Speed is not free.
• Chronos, absolute time, is different than Kairos, qualitative time.
• A speed society might create the precondition for psychosis
• Italians have an expression for the ‘sweetness of doing nothing’; dolce far niente. Do we have a word for that?
• We have moved into REAL TIME ENTERPRISE, a rapid pace of business that used to be determined by the speed of hand delivered mail. 
• We are ‘always on’. Does this give us time to reflect?
• Nemawashi is a Japanese term that means the creation of trust through time. It is thought to be the groundwork for understanding. If we skip this step, how do we understand one another?
• Social capital takes time to grow.
• Slowness doesn’t have to be a drag on civilization.
• In Israel schools, time is taught as a concept and a way of understanding other cultures. Do we consider time enough?

And so happily, I learned to make books.

Concertina

This first example, above, was my all-time favorite; a concertina form that holds separate signatures within a small half-accordion frame. This cover is made from a soft green Lotka paper (traditionally made from a plant in Nepal), with each signature held by waxed binding thread of a different color. This will be the format for a portfolio of architecture work.

This narrow, horizontal book (above) is a well-known Japanese Stab binding, filled with hand-made denim and abaca paper, with tea leaf & abaca `tipin’ (meaning an additional page that is different than the body of the book and often is the first sheet you encounter when you open the book).

Much more of a traditional `book’, the above binding is a kind of Perfect-Bound book, also known as flex binding, where the pages are glued in a text-block but still flexible and separate from the Davey Board spine. The fabric is silk, and the interior of the boards are lined with suminagashi paper (Japanese traditional marbling technique using ink (sumi) and water).

These two books are not shining finished examples of binding techniques, but they were learning experiences and represent two types that I’d like to explore further because of their durability. The top image is a Sewn-to-Tape binding, using a cloth that belonged to my grandmother as the cover. Cloth must first be prepared by adhering it to paper and drying, and if you buy book cloth this will have already been done for you. The tape itself is made of fabric, and can be purchased in various widths. The bottom is Sewn-to-Chord- much trickier in my opinion and I much prefer the tape.

Along with accordion books, we tried several different folded structures that have their roots in origami. This sweet little book includes a ribbon that would allow the book to be tied closed or hung open. I later played with paste papers I had made to create two variations on this theme, below:

Paste papers are just what they sound like– plain paper that is painted with a paste-like paint. Using tools & implements that have texture or teeth, you can manipulate multiple colors and the paper begins to have a sense of depth as a result of the translucency created by the paint. Later, this paper can be trimmed creating beautiful snapshots of color and texture.

The Dos a Dos is a simple folded structure that we learned early on in class while mastering simple binding stitches. It also lends itself well to color and content play:

The Altered Book is something we spent very little time on, but held the most fascination for me. Some altered book artists are just, well, badass. Their alterations are pure labors of love. I hope to post some links to these amazing artists in a future blog, but for now my first humble effort- a used book called “The Fear Makers”– which involved a fictional story set in Germany during WWII. Not knowing the story line (and with no time to read it), I responded to the cover, title, and my own take on the events of the time. This was the altered state:

A few final projects and thoughts:

The box was a time and measurement intensive endeavor, but with satisfying results. This box is made with a linen book cloth, bone clasp (from already deceased animal bones, for those concerned about animal cruelty), and Lotka paper latch and lining:

Along with bookbinding, we made paper (as mentioned) and honed our typesetting skills– with a trio of linoleum cut, wood type, and lead type all poured into one project, we learned to (at the very least) appreciate the pain and suffering of our typesetting forbears and (at the most) appreciate the wonderful possibilities of super-cool antique typesets. Below is the origin of my experiments– a wedding guest book for dear friends:

And speaking of possibilities; paper Paper PAPER! Each project seemed to respond so differently to each choice of paper– texture, color, and weight. Check out the same linoleum, wood, and lead type design on various papers versus book cloth:

Box 1

This container, aside from ashes, was meant to hold the memory of the folding process as well as the ashes themselves, and the residual folds became as important to its function as the end use. It also was meant to answer design questions about burial processes. I wanted the folding to be a part of a ritual process of mourning that could solve some issues of overcrowding, land and resource use, and still contain symbolic meaning. I began to ask questions about the metaphor of design process through the residue of folds:

How do we, as architects, design a process?

How can we use what we know about process to inform the end result?

I made multiple box designs that began with the same initial size and shape, but through folding made vastly different boxes. The folds of each design are evident due to the use of wire mesh embedded between canvas layers. The folds are creased into the wire mesh and then stitched to emphasize the process:

Box 2

In no particular order, I’m going to start with `Supporting’- a segment of thesis seminar taken with Silvia Acosta. Designed to be a memorial bench, my design response to `Supporting’ was meant to embody the time period of mourning as well as its immediate use to support a body. This time period could last a lifetime, forty years, or only as long as someone is using and maintaining it. The materials were meant to interact with the user and age, decay, and transform.

The seat- laminated wood, supported by rope:

The supports- thicker laminated wood and steel, cast in concrete foundations:

Bench Supports

Bench Support Concrete Foundation

The stone- a cast concrete counterweight suspended below the sitter:

Sitter and Stone

As I designed the bench, I created stories about how it might be experienced. For example:

Imagine a widower. Instead of a conventional stone, he chooses to place a bench where his beloved is buried. Below the seat is an engraved stone that bears her name. When he sits, the counterweight resists his own weight, a visceral presence of the memory of her, and the weight of his sorrow. Daily, weekly, monthly, or annually, and finally when possible- the widower comes to the bench to spend time. He talks wordlessly, a sitting observance of the passing time and with it his passing grief. In ten years or less, he may have to replace ropes or maintain the wood- until one day, he comes no more. When he dies, his name is inscribed on the stone and it sits quietly undisturbed, holding the seat in tension. Family or friends and even strangers come infrequently and use the bench until the day when no living person remembers. The ropes, untended, rot and break. The stone drops to the ground and the two supports shed their decaying wood to reveal the skeletons of steel standing erect in the silent ground. The stone and its supports will be swallowed by the earth.

After the story came the actual bench construction and installation. Suddenly, the bench acquired new meanings and stories, and my interest in community engagement collided with installation architecture and an interest in gorilla-inspired projects. I borrowed some city land and planted the bench at the site of a bridge demolition in the dark of a November night. The life span of the bench, I soon discovered, was to be considerably shorter than I expected (as it became a part of demolition six months later), but the process brought to light some more wonderful fringe spaces with potential for projects. This bench was a catalyst for new work, and along with the bridge, has been swallowed by the earth.

Bench and Site

Beauty, or the discussion of it, is Pandora’s Box. In art school, as in architecture school, beauty-as an idea- is the silent body in the room that generally no instructor wants to acknowledge. If acknowledged, it’s labelled a pitfall and a danger, pushed aside for the more noble pursuit of truth. Beauty is too subjective. In Elaine Scarry’s book “On Beauty and Being Just”, she takes on the challenge of this discussion and charges us to reconsider our definition of beauty. Beauty is an inspiration that invites us to seek out truth, according to Scarry, rather than the embodiment of truth itself.

And who can deny the intense experience of beauty? Multi-sensory and seemingly Pavlovian in certainty, we have all had experiences that imprint on our being something undeniable, though we generally can’t explain the source of our certainty. Reported most frequently and informally in the `natural’ landscape, beauty is observed anywhere for any individual: exquisite asymmetry in a floral arrangement, the strange and haunting allure of detritus in an abandoned space, the grace of a powerful carnivore in the act of killing its prey, a gesture, a whisper, an intangible…

Why are we afraid to speak of beauty? It’s possible that the word itself- too simple and overused, cheapens our experience. Beauty might be cast too wide as a net descriptive, holding everything. It may, when uttered, cause the experience to dissipate, packaging the phenomenon with the result of dulling it. We might feel unduly required to defend the weighty word once uttered. The logical next step is to define beauty. Elaine Scarry defines the qualities of beauty in four parts:

1. Beauty is sacred. Which is to say, if beauty is self-evident, then it is like truth, `clinging to an immortal sphere.’

2. Beauty is unprecedented. In any moment we recognize something to be beautiful, we are acknowledging the uniqueness of the moment, the place, the object.

3. Beauty is lifesaving. By this, Scarry refers to the life-giving, life-affirming properties of beauty– how everything about the experience appears more vivid than what surrounds it, and that it’s retraction feels like a loss of life.

4. Beauty incites deliberation. Finally, Scarry is pointing to the intense experience of beauty as the starting point for searching. When we experience beauty, we feel certain and yet we also ultimately experience errors or disappointment. “But if the person or thing outlives its own beauty–then it is sometimes not just turned away from but turned upon, as though it has enacted a betrayal.” We must then decide our stance about beauty. We can’t experience an ‘error’ and not feel the impact of the dissolution of belief.

Temporary beauty is really the temporal nature of us, as interfaces with the world. Scarry uses the example of a beautiful vase that catches our eye. The longer we look at it, she proposes, the beauty ceases. “Was the beauty of the object false, or was it real but brief?”, she asks. If we redefine beauty as a sacred, unprecedented, lifesaving provocation for the search for truth, then any perceived beauty is real and is always limited by time. The vase did not fail us, however it caused us to recognize something that we must search to find the truth or meaning in.

Why discuss beauty? There is a pedagogical order in the way architects are educated. The sequence of classes corresponds to the expected sequence learning, to then influence our thesis explorations and eventually our life as designers. My dual life as an artist and then a designer has made me painfully aware that I do not naturally possess a logically sequential way of working, at least not in traditionally accepted structures.

There is a tension between `making’ and `defining’ that has always existed in my own practice. I believe I make from a place that is inspired by beauty– the unacknowledged body in the room. The core of making, for me, has intangible aspects that deny a level of explanation, at least at their inception. I do not begin the process of making with a manifesto as much as I would like to. There is not a concise thesis, no rehearsed argument, and no bullet points of reasoning. For some time, these processes have existed separately. Because of this duality, beauty and the origin of making are often pushed aside in order to complete an order of operations.

There is a statement of intent, residing consciously, objectively, and separately from the act of making. A manifesto so articulated that it’s hard to imagine a bridge that will mediate the two phenomena: Making and Defining. My intent (To explore the potential of temporary architectural installations on identified sites; a juxtaposition that poses questions about the nature of site, the role of architecture, and the use of constructs as a social tool) has a hidden agenda. An inarticulate one. It is akin to beauty, in close proximity to the temporal, and is all about making for the sake of making.

Why is this relevant?

All things decay over time. The speed with which nature can reclaim a man-made space is surprisingly swift, when left to its own devices. It wasn’t that long ago, relatively speaking, that European settlers crawled west across North America, making plans to develop everything in sight. The Jeffersonian grid, part of the Land Ordinance of 1785, was an attempt to place a visible design on untouched landscape, and organize the chaos of nature into identifiable, profitable lots. 

Patterns of growth, decay, and human attempts at the organization of nature are the subjects of Byrne’s commentary and are also prominent qualities of urban sites I have identified in Providence, Rhode Island. Last week, with the launching of this blog, I set out to define the `starting line’ intention for my architectural thesis:

To explore the potential of temporary architectural installations on identified sites; a juxtaposition that poses questions about the nature of site, the role and definition of architecture, and the use of constructs as a tool for social change.

There are three fundamental topics in this statement:

1. What is temporary architecture?

2. What are the qualities of a potential site?

3. What/how can constructs be used to enact social change?

While looking at work such as: http://www.icebergproject.org/, http://cca-actions.org/, and others to find inspiration for engaging responses to site, I set out to identify sites (topic #2) in Providence. Sites that have- in my estimation- potential, and to talk about why I think they do. Site #1 will serve as a test example of this potential:

Site #1 Gano Street Train Tunnel & Vicinity

The East Side Railroad Tunnel was opened in 1908 and was built to replace another track at Fox Point. It originally ran two tracks, one for an electric car system and the one you see pictured above (the two photos were taken from the top of the tunnel mouth, roughly a year apart- Spring 2010 and Winter 2011)- a traditional freight train. Only 73 years later, in 1981, it was closed. 

From the opening of the tunnel to the Crook Point Bascule Bridge that spans the Seekonk River, nature has aggressively reclaimed the space, with species of trees, vines, and a weed-like bamboo variety clogging the once-noisy tracks. All varieties of birds now occupy the span from the water to the tunnel’s now steel-covered mouth. 

The space has taken on a very pedestrian life, too. This site is on the outskirts of a residential sector and is the remnant of an industrial age. Because of it’s abandonment and potential for adventure on the margins of society it attracts young people looking for a thrill (me, if I qualify as young) and displaced people looking for shelter or anonymity (me, when I want to be left alone). It is part dumping ground, part alternative recreation space, and part empty canvas. The tunnel itself- 22 feet high, 31 feet wide, and 5080 feet long- is the like the den of a sleeping dragon- full of intrigue and danger. It is so intriguing, in fact, that someone has taken a cutting torch and cut a small doorway into the thick steel cover.

The land, still owned by the City of Providence, is a narrow strip of property leading from the tunnel to the Seekonk River. On the west side is the local grocer Eastside Market and a new condominium complex, and on the east side are neighborhood ball fields. The track sits twenty-five feet below busy Gano Street. Most cars pass over this tunnel with no knowledge of its existence but for the behemoth frozen, rusting bridge just a quarter mile away. 

What is the life of this space now? What is its potential? 

Site #1 provides an introduction, or character sketch, of the kind of sites I’ll be working with. Each of the places listed have an element of intrigue for me, as the East Side Railway does. During three years of living and working in Providence, these places have aroused emotions leading to questions about their undefined state. 

For instance, each time I drive into Providence I am conscious of the North Burial Ground. I notice its well-groomed campus with a variety of trees and memorials, and I remind myself to try and visit it before too long. But unlike Swan Point Cemetery, I resist actually visiting it because there is a conflict in my mind with it’s situation along the highway. The noise, the exposure to the wind, and the lack of tranquil privacy makes me think it’s the last place I would want to be buried, to place a loved one, or to visit. I’m reminded of the slow march of time and development, and wonder when the peaceful lawn of final repose became a buffer zone between the highway and a residential neighborhood. Although the North Burial Ground is not listed as one of my sites, it helped articulate those qualities that cause me to reflect each time I see it or others. Those qualities have become the foundation for my selections. 

The sites are on the urban fringe. 

They lack a formal identity. 

They are sometimes abandoned or isolated. 

They seem to simultaneously attract and repel particular human activity. 

They are like a hanging question, as yet, unspoken: 

Site #2 Epoch Assisted Living Shoreline

Site #3 Beneath the Henderson Bridge

Site #4 Swan Point Cemetery Meets Riverside Cemetery

Site #5 Providence Place/ Woonasquatucket River Passage West

Site #6 Highway Island/ Dean Street, Routes 6 & 10