We are pleased to be included in Archinect Sessions, a Podcast that reaches an international audience of architects and students of architecture. The specific episode is titled, "Site Visit: Exhibit Columbus," (Soundcloud link here: link ) which chronicles a return to Columbus, Indiana by Ken Koense and Donna Sink to discuss the installations now completed. In the case of our project, we were delayed 6 weeks due to CNC issues over the summer and just happened to be on site the day of the recording. Rather than discuss the project, they chose instead to interview Martin Summers about the design.
The excerpt from the podcast was published as a separate podcast titled, "Site Visit: Indelible Patterns." Soundcloud link here: link
Martin Summers and David Biagi co-taught the University of Kentucky College of Design, School of Architecture design-build studio for this event. The exhibit will run for three months starting with an opening on August 24 in Columbus, Indiana. http://exhibitcolumbus.org/
Brief Project Text:
Indelible Pattern(s)
The architecture of Columbus serves as inspiration to our design response. A first time visitor to Columbus might initially see object buildings, organized by clear and precise modernist rules with incredible material and detailing innovation. With some time and observation however, clues begin to appear, revealing buildings and public spaces that are layered with a complexity and site specificity acknowledging both the Cummins Foundation Architecture Program's goals and the architectural lineage each building is helping to construct.
Picking up on this complexity, our design attempts to enmesh the history Columbus with contemporary design methodologies and fabrications tools to produce an installation that is visually rich, conceptually strong, and organized via site specific strategies. Out of that contrast the clear modernist rules have been used but altered, producing formal and spatial hybrids layered with the process of their own making and contextually responsive. Subtle references occur throughout the design where regulating lines on the site are absorbed into the geometry or the generative rules, producing organizational and patterning effects. Specific view corridors carve through the design and spatialize links to iconic structures in the city, acknowledging the architectural legacy of this small, mid-west town. These architectural operations synthesize the design across scales and start a formal / spatial dialogue that is only revealed over time and contemplation.
The installation initially appears to be a single habitable space defined by an articulated canopy above and an inscribed plinth that situates occupants at the hight of the small trees leafy canopies. These two elements (plinth and canopies) combine through a series of formal and organizational operations to produce an integrated but loosely organized whole, understood via its contradictions and desire to remain elusive. It is both fluid and discreet, site-specific and foreign, legible and evasive, analog and digital, natural and manufactured, subtle and overt. The structure organizes a series of flows through the landscape to re-contextualize the existing trees, adjacent windows and distant towers, as participants in this new, temporary architectural space. Patterns emerge and disappear as one moves through the site and structure, taking advantage of the changing seasons, light and parallax conditions of its design.
After Exhibit Columbus concludes the project will move to Henderson, Kentucky. It will be
re-installed in a riverfront park to extend the life of the project and engage citizens in another community in dialogue about the value of design.
Design Team:
Assistant Professor Martin Summers
Associate Professor David Biagi
Students:
Nick Abend (4UG)
Bryan Hardin (1G)
Drew McGurk (1G)
Alexis Peneff (2G)
Project Sponsors:
Exhibit Columbus
Butch Branson
Tim Skinner