Power of Trends
SUMMER 2019
Translating the Building Exhibition
[Juicebox / Denver Arts and Venues]
This work was part of a selected group exhibition organized by JuiceBox with support of the Denver Arts & Venues Cultural Partner Program. The exhibition was a month long and included works from Rick Sommerfield, Jimenez Lai, Tony Gonzalez, Germane Barnes, Jordan Gravely, BairBalliet, Kevin Hirth, and myself. The prompt asked us to examine the city of Denver and similar cities that are facing rapid change in their built environment.
For my work I was interested in the aspect of time and how that shapes not only the building but the transition between a work in progress up to final state. Trends change, both users and designers adapt to new conditions, amplifying the result. Maneuvering between what has been built and what is to come. Buildings can be playful, mass produced, unique, and can have other characteristics that respond to a specific context. In this ‘rework’ three different scales of the city, (the downtown monoliths, the simulated playground, and the stitched infill) were embellished with formal geometries and surface treatments that blend with each other. This blend streamlines the building’s process of world making and inserts machines that assist in the temporal experience of the building.
The three scales studied are staged within a context that is in a mid-state of completion, with scaffolding and construction elements deployed throughout the city. The buildings are not complete but do embody an aesthetic within their unfinished forms. Sometimes this mid stage or early erection of the building is what can generate a different translation of itself, than when one sees the final piece.
Within the city, each parcel responds to each other and governing parameters that dictate invisible boundaries that architects must respond to in innovative ways. Height constraints, adequate open areas, signage, circulation, code, and other elements come into play in the early stages of a building. While blasé in their repetition of formal jargon, these can be paired with speculative thought for smart public spaces that envision the city in a new environment.