Giving Beer to Humans

...has never ignited a downward spiral of troubled scenarios or lead to failure, disappointment, or loss. And so, we please ourselves with distributing consequence-less joy this holiday (Christmas, Boxing Day) season.

McDUH Final Renderings

Component Peaks and Guest Posts

A few small- scale mock-ups of developed McDUH building-blocks. Another synopsis of this project is featured on the Make Lab Blog.

Re-DIFFA’d Table Fixture

That is to say, ‘Re- Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS’ installation, although I’m not sure if this table is still technically fighting AIDS…

Well…. I don’t have AIDS, and I own this table, so if we ignore the post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy here, this table’s AIDS fighting days are far from over.

In addition to being an irrefutably effective treatment for AIDS, the material expression has been improved in quality and expression- Plank, Strut, Strap.

McDUH Typological Iteration #1 [Moneyshots]

The implementation will be toned down significantly prior to final iteration. In an effort to explore the possibilities of the program kit, it has been irigorously exercised/ pushed without regard to feasibility or even, necessarily, desirability.

Binary Architecture Distillations

The distillation towards extremes facilitates our most fundamental critical impulses (0,1). We are awarded the opportunity to objectify the variables (on/off, yes/no), although the products of these operations may actually provide better insight/correlation into the actual desire and act of the distillation itself than with the gradated realistic form.

Mass Customized Detroit Urban Homesteading (McDUH) Operational Logic

Mass customized Detroit Urban Homesteading (McDUH) is a program by which urban Detroit neighborhood rejuvenation may be encouraged by facilitating autonomy in production of forms, culture, and sustenance. The vehicle by which McDUH operates is through the conversion disused small neighborhood support/service buildings (ie. auto repair garages, et al) into multifunction homesteading edifices that may support and complement community area character, productivity, and education. McDUH recognizes the parallels between the urban homesteading movement and digital fabrication, in that both reinstitute control of production and product in the hands of the end-user. The mass customizable nature of digital fabrication further lends this process of adaptive reuse homesteading as reproducible, pre-conceived ‘kit of parts’ may be developed to respond to existing conditions and facilitate various programmatic uses. Specifically, the McDUH system consists of a template to analyze existing materiality/ formal conditions, determines the ideal corresponding programmatic uses as converted urban homestead components, and assigns the appropriate digitally fabricated supportive typology to accomplish this adaptation.

Succinctly, we provide a program to facilitate Urban Detroit neighborhoods’ increased autonomy in the revival and production of forms, information, and standard of living through the systemic transformation of the disused to the self-generating.

Expanding into Placesetting Facades (DIFFA Detroit 2011)

More moment-image based endeavors- this time for Michigan AIDS coalition’s Dining by design event in Detroit. Details and superlatives are iterated here.

Conceptualized and fabricated in Conjunction with colleagues/ humans Mark Ehgotz, Scott Poloney, Ken Zawislak, Eileen Devine, we envisioned this installation as simulacrum of ‘Glamping’:

"Satisfying your craving for the outdoors and your penchant for a good meal and a glass of wine. Glamping Detroit celebrates this concept within the urban fabric of the city and showcases the richness of Detroit - Past, Present, and Future."

This piece is fabricated from donated/ reclaimed materials and services, and exemplifies the possible effectiveness of spot design-build processes within a niche of the practice largely devoid of that architectural modality

Rendering by Poloney, Photos by Zawislak

The Second to Last Node Engagement.

Perhaps third. It’s called ‘hedging’, kids. Look it up. As exhibited at the 2011 dally in the Ally Festival. (Requisite love found here: http://www.knightarts.org/community/detroit/diet-at-dally)

Photos by Richard Chase or Josh Devault, and needlessly grained and contrasted by me. 

Duplicate Datums and the Anatomy of a Hot Mess

Déjà vu is the recognization of a twice- discrete point in reference space over a continuous Cartesian reality. These manifest as emotional re-interpretations of overlapping values.

Some Diet Node Attention (D.N.A.)

Because the aesthetic resembles a double helix? And because it’s a diet/ lite’ version of the previous node project? And the initialism of that spells…D-Do you… Never mind.

As with most of my recent creative attempts, the aesthetic is heavily grounded in fabric of the city. Also, in congruency with my recent works, it is heavy and requires a van to move.

As installed for the figment event on Belle Isle http://detroit.figmentproject.org/

Photos by Lola Photography and AJ Viola as noted.

Thanks to Richard at Motor City Makers http://www.motorcitymakers.com/ and Alisyn Malek, who has recently become a real person: http://escaptapusproductions.tumblr.com/

Ecological Opportunism 2: Third Coast Reclamation Project

We see, within blighted coastal forms, an opportunity for the development of temporary vivaria for migrating species, while simultaneously accelerating the natural reclamation of structures by nature. This program selects abandoned, disused forms associated with the Great Lakes coast (grain silos, factories, coal plants, etc) and systemically unfolds the structures, injects decomposing- accelerating flora and fauna, and deposits soil/ water remediating microbes, all while providing a habitat for- as well as a forum for the observation of- specific migratory avians.

It is an exaggerated exploitation of slow demolition- the form’s life is extended through opportunistic adaptation, while the structure’s death is framed in a meaningful context.

‘Yes’ to Ivan- MC- Randa- Leo- Joe- Joel