Those crazy artists are taking over Oakland!

From the Crucible's Annual Fire Arts Festival

Held in a large open parking lot at 7th & Union next to where the BART emerges from the tangle of the 980 freeway. The lot is publicly owned and is used as overflow parking for the West Oakland BART. These swaths of parking that straddle the large pieces of infrastructure are some of the last open building sites in West or Downtown Oakland. Located across the street from the Crucible, another arts center in this area could solidify the transformative value of the arts for this area, which the city has already designated for community oriented development. Rather than compete, the two arts program can compliment eachother, with the Crucible offering industrial arts courses and facilities and the new program focusing on art and architecture. The massive brutal cuts of these freeways once tore this nieghborhood apart, quickly speeding commuters through the area while cutting it off from the heart of the city. This program could not only make the immediate area a more beautiful, dynamic space, but also reconnect it back to the city.

vs Powers of Ten

Just thinking about Margarita's comments on recursive scalar structure.

Diagram Deployment

Using the same diagram at different scales can produce drastically different effects. Diagrams considered conventional at the large end of the spectrum--the scale of the city or the neighborhood--or at the small end--the scale of clothing--are regarded as radical at the middle scales of architecture. They resist traditional architectural arrangement and tectonics at these scales. These territorial infringements on scale are among the most difficult to operate well within, but they can be most rewarding when successfully negotiated. --Reiser and Umemoto

before...party...afterwards

What's next?

Thus far I've been visiting two classes twice a week and helping them solve issues with the perspective drawings they are creating. Time is short (and often wasted) and it is difficult to get some students to remain engaged with their work for the duration of the period. Others are more focused but shy and hesitant to ask for help. As this project comes to a close I am struggling to find a way to introduce another, more design oriented project (although there are a fair amount of design issues inherent to the work they are already producing). I keep wondering, " are they just too young to have a serious interest in architecture?" Then again, Le Corbusier could not have been much older than these students when he designed his first house, not that a mind like Corbu's is to be found in every randomly selected portion of the population. Julia Morgan passed through the same hallowed halls of Oakland High and left with enough certainty of purpose to demand admission into L'ecole des Beaux-arts despite their expressed policies of gender-discrimination. So how does one get students to engage critically with the built environment; to make observations and question the validity of existing design solutions? Mark suggested a film, which I think is a great process, but one that requires as much vision and planning as architecture itself in a medium in which I have little experience. Photography may be another method of engagement. Perhaps I could give the students disposable cameras and ask them to photograph observations they make about their environment. Any suggestions?