Transient Studio: On Temporality, Scale and Movement

New Studio for Fall 09 - SARUP

“… space is not a passive, unchanging physical object inside of which interesting things happen but is actually the interesting thing itself: a living tissue constantly changing and adapting to events. Indeed space is created by those events and is inseparable from them: it is an event or organism itself and not just the container for them or a background phenomenon.”

Sanford Kwinter

Milwaukee exists on the edge of a unique global geographic feature, Lake Michigan. Historically this edge was either privately owned or exploited for industrial purposes. It was not until the 20th century that this edge became a mediator between City and Horizon; a new urban concept was created: Recreation. Milwaukee exploits this edge in various manifestations. This studio will isolate a position/duration along the edge, specifically the Summerfest grounds due to its unique urban, temporal, and ‘Event’ spaces. It remains at once a permanent Milwaukee fixture and yet is highly transient, fluctuating between being activated and de-activated.

This general area is bounded by 5 sides, each with its own duration and scale. It is bounded to the south by the port entry; the north by the Milwaukee Art Museum; the east by Lake Michigan; the west by the Third Ward; and above by I-794.

The studio will use several sites within or near the Summerfest grounds and, through two projects and several exercises , explore the themes of Scale, Temporality (i.e. winter vs. summer, day vs. night, auto vs. human), and Movement. These issues by their very nature cannot exist in isolation; each is established through relative judgments, producing a multiplicity of complex physical, social, historic and temporal relationships within and around this piece of urban landscape.

Diagramming and physical model exploration will be used in conjunction with digital fabrication/emergent design techniques (knowing scripting is not required). Emphasis will be on developing and honing students’ design processes and artifact production.

Students should have a general knowledge of a 3D software platform, rendering program(s), and use of the Rapid Prototyping Lab.