ad hoc infrastructures

Sukkah City: Other Highlights

2010-09-19T20:06:00.005-04:00

"Gathering" by Dale Suttle, So Sugita & Ginna Nguyen

"Single Thread" by Matter Practice

"Repetition Meets Difference" by Matthias Karch

"Log" by Kyle May & Scott Abrahams

Sukkah City: Shim Sukkah

2010-09-19T20:02:00.006-04:00

Adhocism's pick for best sukkah: "Shim Sukkah" by Tinder, Tinker.
Check out the others at Union Square through Monday evening.

Landscapes of Quarantine Opening: Context/Shift

2010-03-11T20:12:00.006-05:00

It was a mad rush to the opening, but Context/Shift was finished in time! The opening was a mad blur of friends and colleagues and beer everywhere! It was an amazing turn-out and I want to thank Nicola Twilley of Edible Geography and Geoff Manaugh of BLDGBLOG for their vision and their guidance throughout the LoQ studio and the weeks leading up to the opening. Congratulations also to the other participants in the exhibition - I'm biased, but I think the work is superlative.

Above all, I really need to thank Alejandro Sanchez for all of his help and encouragement throughout the project. It really could not have happened without his hard work.

Also deserving thanks are Storefront for Art and Architecture, the New York State Council on the Arts, Polshek Partnership Architects, studioMode, Universal Steel Fabricators and especially my parents, Gail and Larry. Then, there's the other helpers without whom the project would never have been finished in time: Kingman Brewster, Mark Gardner, John Tinmouth, Tom Chang, Jarrett Pelletier, Susan Rodriguez and Joanne Sliker. Thanks so much to all! I am humbled by your generosity.

More pictures here.

Context/Shift/Process

2010-02-27T23:47:00.004-05:00

A sneak preview of the LoQ installation...

Landscapes of Quarantine

2010-02-14T01:36:00.013-05:00

"The house where he lived was quarantined, and all the people directly exposed were confined in it...Quarantine houses had guards stationed about them, who allowed no one to go in or out during the season of quarantine. The quarantine people were vaccinated, and during the time until it could be determined whether the vaccination would take, they were supplied with food. When the vaccination took, the person under quarantine was bathed, given new clothing in place of the old, which was burned, and he was then discharged. When a house had been emptied of people under quarantine, the bedding and curtains were burned, sulphur burned in all the rooms, and the walls sprayed with corrosive sublimate. None of the inspectors or guards were allowed to enter any of the houses under quarantine, when there was danger; and the doctors that did the vaccinating saturated their clothing with the corrosive sublimate before and after entering a house...The clothing and bedding were either paid for at a reasonable price by the board of health, or were replaced by new articles. In one of the houses quarantined, there were 31 laboring men who were inclined to object to the rules of quarantine. One escaped, but he was taken back when found, and a guard, with a rifle and instructions to shoot should he attempt to escape, was put over him..."

-SCIENCE, A Weekly Newspaper of All the Arts and Sciences, v. XIII no. 323, April 12, 1889, p. 278.

"The slow realization that these were the properties of the house, embedded in the very stones that possessed a fatality in themselves, that the house was itself an uncanny power, came unwillingly, against all reason, the more disquieting for the absolute normality of the setting, its veritable absence of overt terror."

-Anthony Vidler, The Architectural Uncanny, Essays in the Modern Unhomely (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1992), p.18.

I couldn't be more excited to be participating in the LANDSCAPES OF QUARANTINE exhibition at Storefront for Art and Architecture. I am humbled to be part of such a stellar group. Check out the Storefront site for more information. The opening for the exhibition will be March 9, 2010. I will be presenting 'CONTEXT/shift', an installation piece that riffs on the iconic Holl/Acconci Storefront facade. The photo-montages above are preliminary studies.

scaffold a day: soho V

2009-11-21T19:46:00.004-05:00

Spring and West Broadway

It's been a while since I've posted...so here's the latest installment in the scaffold a day series. Since I've been busy with the quarantine studio I haven't had much of an opportunity to explore the city for more scaffolding. I am working on some scaffolding research now though, and should have some more information to post in the next month or so, so stay tuned!

New Logo!!!!

2009-11-14T23:06:00.000-05:00

A very special thanks to A.S. for the new look!

scaffold a day: LES

2009-10-18T20:53:00.002-04:00

scaffold a day: harrison & abramovitz II

2009-10-18T20:50:00.001-04:00

More to come...

Der Berg by Exyzt

2009-10-08T21:25:00.002-04:00

This is an amazing installation with tube & coupler scaffolding. One of the interesting things about the installation is that it used the scaffolding as both interior and exterior elements. Instead of being used in a "supporting" role, the scaffolding becomes the focus itself. It would have been interesting if the installation created more of a cocoon-like space rather than an object. Such a simple idea, but it's the scale that makes it really interesting.

Scaffold Squatter City

2009-10-03T14:46:00.010-04:00

Check out BLDGBLOG's latest post. It's a report on a fascinating project called the Museum of the Phantom City by Irene Cheng and Brent Snyder and sponsored by the Van Alen Institute. This virtual museum is an interactive (via iPhone what else?) cataloguing of possible futures for Manhattan. I just downloaded the app and I can't wait to put it to use. The graphics are beautiful; sites with many possible futures are brightened orbs on a darkened Google Earth map of the city. The app calculates your location and shows you (as a very faint orb - no future for me?) on the map as well. Jackson Heights is far away from any possible future...

One of the speculative scaffolding projects I'm currently allowing to gestate a bit is a hyperbolic future landscape of the city in which scaffolding and sidewalk sheds have been allowed to proliferate without regulation in a city devastated by the bankruptcy of the city in the '70s. Let me back up a bit - and I'm sorry there are not yet any illustrations:

New York in the 1970s was not the gentrified and relatively tourist friendly NYC that we are all so familiar with today. It's an old story, but New York almost went bankrupt. Almost. What would have happened? There was no money for city services. Let's say the ripple effect forced banks to foreclose on thousands of properties in the city. Let's also say that as those buildings began to deteriorate from lack of maintenance, that the receivers of those buildings put up sidewalk sheds and scaffolding to avoid injury to passersby (more out of a fear of lawsuits than fear of fines).

(Ponte Vecchio in Florence. Image courtesy Freefoto.com)

Like a medieval Italian bridge, we could go on to speculate that these temporary structures would go on to stay in place for years, if not decades, centuries. The squatters in the buildings start to make use of the temporary structures as well, extending the 'private' rooms of the adjacent buildings into the 'airspace' of the sidewalk. Makeshift gardens and terraces appear at first, but then after the first few winters, the more resourceful of the squatters start to weatherize their shelters. Soon there are entire duplex and triplex 'apartments' added to the existing buildings. Without the resources (or the political will) to evict the squatters, a new 'scaffold law' is enacted to protect the homesteaders...

(Trial-Living in Slubfurt by Christian Hasucha)

scaffold a day: downtown II

2009-10-03T14:30:00.005-04:00

Downtown Manhattan is like a magnet for scaffolding these days. The photos in the last two posts were taken in ten minutes in a two block corridor along Chambers Street on Wednesday September 29, 2009. There are many municipal buildings in the area. I wasn't able to hang around for a long time (I was downtown for a meeting with the Department of Buildings, an event that could be the subject of its own research and speculation) to see how the installations affected pedestrian traffic. The whole area did have this kind of 'in flux' feeling that reminded me of how I felt after 9/11...I'm afraid I've been too busy to enter the urbanshed competition, but it would be interesting to see if any of the entries deal with trying to change the perception of the scaffold so that it is seen as a protector of urban space rather than a nuisance.

scaffold a day: downtown I

2009-10-03T14:24:00.002-04:00

scaffold a day: morningside heights

2009-09-27T18:45:00.003-04:00

116th and Broadway. Two layers of scaffolding - I'm not quite sure why the smaller exposed portion of scaffolding in the lower right was added. This is across from the entrance to McKim Mead and White's Columbia University campus.

scaffold a day: nolita

2009-09-27T00:00:00.002-04:00

Kenmare and Mulberry (or Mott I always get them confused).

Anyway, this was taken right after the BLDGBLOG book launch happenings at the Storefront for Art and Architecture yesterday...Lebbeus Woods was speaking as this photo was taken; I'm sorry to have missed it, but the presentations by djrupture, Richard Mosse, Mason White and novelist Patrick McGrath were really interesting. For more and sundry information, check out Nicola Twilley's twitter postings from yesterday.

scaffold a day: grand central

2009-09-25T11:37:00.002-04:00

This is the sight that greets drivers heading south on Park Avenue.

It would have been amazing to watch this go up!

scaffold a day: jones beach

2009-08-17T16:57:00.001-04:00

Mast climbers from the bus headed to Jones Beach.

21st century commandeering?

2009-08-10T22:36:00.005-04:00

In the June 6th issue of The Economist's Technology Quarterly, there is a really interesting article on smart grids. "In order to accommodate the flow of energy between new sources of supply and new forms of demand, the world's electrical grids are going to have to get a lot smarter" (page 15). This idea has been getting a lot of media attention lately because of the amounts of money being allocated to infrastructure by the Federal government. What it essentially means is that the grid would have to be become more interactive, with information flowing from consumers to the generators instead of just having energy flow the old-fashioned way. One example that the article highlights is the possibility that a smart grid, in combination with new technology in electric car batteries, could allow the distributed storage of excess generating capacity from electricity generating plants. Basically, individual car owners would allow their cars to be used to store electricity off of the grid at off-peak hours, and then ostensibly to allow the grid to take that electricity back at a higher peak time. What is fascinating is that this would mean that private property is being at least partially commandeered for public purpose - not in the traditional sense, and not without permission and/or compensation, but it brings up all kinds of logistical questions, blurring the line between public and private property. It is ironic that the automobile, ultimate symbol of American individuality, could quite possibly become the first widespread and most acceptable instrument of collective action in our country.

scaffold a day: soho IV

2009-08-04T21:01:00.003-04:00

Broome Street

symbiotic structures

2009-08-02T17:24:00.003-04:00

This is from a fascinating exhibition currently at MoMA. The artist arranged all of the items in his mother's home. He collaborated with his mother on laying it all out. This is a shot of a portion of his mother's home with many colorful shopping bags laid out as a continuous surface; in the gallery, the frame of the house is supported by sections of tube & clamp scaffolding. It is interesting because in a typical construction scenario it is usually the scaffolding that relies on the original building structure for stability. Scaffolding itself doesn't resist lateral loads very well, so it needs to be tied back to the main structure for support. In the case of this structure, the original building needs the support of the scaffolding, almost as a prosthetic, to stand.

scaffold a day: northern boulevard

2009-08-02T13:23:00.002-04:00

scaffold a day: harrison & abramovitz

2009-08-02T12:59:00.004-04:00

Workers installing supported scaffold for a facade restoration of the iconic Great Hall at the New York Hall of Science. There were probably three installers working (two pictured, one on lower roof). At the time this photo was taken, the worker on the low roof was hoisting up the 'x' bracing that was being installed between the blue frames that were already set in place. One worker on the planking was unloading the hoist bucket, and the other was installing the bracing and tightening the fasteners. They were actually moving pretty fast. Here's a short video:

scaffold a day: rooftop

2009-07-28T22:03:00.006-04:00

Here, scaffolding is being used to either protect a large skylight or to provide access to that skylight for maintenance. Rental costs for scaffolding are not outrageously expensive, but neither are they cheap. In an earlier interview with the founder and president of Avontus Software, Brian Webb mentioned that a relatively large portion of the maintenance budget for oil refineries (one of his main clients) is spent on scaffolding - to access portions of the refinery that would otherwise be inaccessible.

repurposed infrastructures

2009-07-26T23:02:00.006-04:00

Opportunism, plain and simple. A former railway and a means of egress...

Some guys in the meatpacking district had the vision and perseverance to shepherd the redevelopment of a derelict viaduct into one of the most beautiful and dynamic places in all of New York City. At the end of the High Line Park, a longtime resident of Chelsea has turned her fire escape into a stage; instead of retreating from the masses, the Renegade Cabaret was born. Now you can watch one from the other.

Reef

2009-07-25T20:25:00.003-04:00

This is an image from 'Reef,' an exhibition/installation at the Storefront for Art and Architecture.

scaffold a day: chelsea north

2009-07-25T20:23:00.002-04:00

24th Street between 7th and 8th.

scaffold a day: soho III

2009-07-25T20:22:00.004-04:00

Mercer Street near Prince.

scaffold a day: soho II

2009-07-25T20:22:00.003-04:00

Mercer Street near Spring.

scaffold a day: soho

2009-07-25T20:20:00.002-04:00

Lafayette just south of the Puck Building.

scaffold a day: men at work

2009-07-25T14:15:00.001-04:00

78th Street in JH

scaffold a day: UES

2009-07-25T13:00:00.002-04:00

Another mast-climber. This one is located at 86th and Park.

scaffold a day: columbus circle II

2009-07-22T10:27:00.004-04:00

57th & 9th

scaffold a day: columbus circle

2009-07-22T10:27:00.003-04:00

This renovation is utilizing mast climbers instead of supported scaffold. If you look closely you can see the masts on the right side of the image. The platform is hidden, sitting on the lowest level on top of the sidewalk bridge.

scaffold a day: midtown

2009-07-22T10:26:00.001-04:00

57th near 7th

scaffold a day: Jackson Heights by night

2009-07-22T10:24:00.003-04:00

This sidewalk bridge was in the process of being installed and the required sidewalk lighting had not yet been installed. It made for some dramatic shadows. The lighting was installed the next day.

scaffold a day: with Jeff Koons

2009-07-11T12:13:00.002-04:00

scaffold a day: the high line

2009-07-11T12:12:00.002-04:00

scaffold a day: financial district

2009-07-06T21:52:00.002-04:00

Broadway & Morris Street

scaffold a day: noho

2009-07-06T21:44:00.003-04:00

Broadway & Bleecker

scaffold a day: downtown brooklyn

2009-07-06T21:42:00.002-04:00

Court Street & Livingston

scaffold a day: midtown east

2009-07-04T13:53:00.006-04:00

Looking slightly northwest from 47th and 2nd Ave.

The green in the middle-ground is supported scaffold with a protective mesh.

scaffold a day: flatiron district-ish

2009-07-04T13:53:00.004-04:00

28th & Broadway

scaffold a day: west village

2009-06-24T21:41:00.005-04:00

West 3rd @ Sullivan Street

scaffold a day: u.w.s.

2009-06-24T21:39:00.002-04:00

87th & Columbus

baby steps

2009-06-22T22:33:00.001-04:00

My first time lapse video! 14th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues.

This is from photos taken during the process of gathering information for my NYSCA grant proposal. I know it's pretty rudimentary, but it's a small step in the project!

scaffold a day: dutch kills (l.i.c.)

2009-06-21T17:51:00.005-04:00

37th Avenue near the N train

Here, the sidewalk was completely closed off, so there was no need to erect a sidewalk shed to protect passersby. It's also a new building, so there is no public access required to the site. This site is on the border between an industrial zone and a residential zone; there was almost no pedestrian traffic, so closing the sidewalk seems to have had little impact.

scaffold a day: hell's kitchen

2009-06-20T15:53:00.002-04:00

51st & 9th

Gussied up

2009-06-17T21:24:00.002-04:00

This is an introductory email post!

See how the shop owners have tried to make the best of the sidewalk shed by adding plants to the posts! That's not a street tree sticking out on the left. The neighbor actually messes it up with the "GOING OUT OF BUSINESS!" sign...

ad hoc interview

2009-06-17T21:12:00.004-04:00

I just had a very informative telephone conversation with Brian Webb, the founder and president of Avontus Software. His company has developed solutions for shoring, scaffolding and formwork applications. I asked him in particular about adoption of CAD by the industry and about whether parametric modeling might have any place in the design of scaffolding systems.

Mr. Webb explained that innovations in software as a design tool are being realized more in the forming industry, where software has been developed that can work with existing CAD tools to design formwork that in his words "will not fail." In other words, the design drawings for the concrete are imported into the software and the design and calculations for the formwork are automatically generated. In the scaffolding industry, CAD is mainly used in place of the drafting table to facilitate documentation that is delivered in much the same way as it has always been. Avontus provides a suite of "blocks" from the major scaffolding manufacturers for its customers to use in the design of the scaffolding. The software company also provides software that will aid in the calculation of loads as well as generative software for laying out and design of curved scaffolding installations, however most design and calculation for scaffolding loading requirements is still done the old fashioned way. One reason for the slow adoption of newer digital technologies is that until very recently, large markets such as New York City's didn't even require installers to submit drawings of planned installations.

In Europe, explains Webb, the standard for general construction scaffolding is 'tube and coupler' systems (see photo above) as opposed to the 'frame' systems prevalent in the U.S. European software companies have developed tools to design these systems, which are labor-intensive to install, but offer much more flexibility in accommodating often irregular site conditions. This deserves more research. Might there exist software that can automatically perform parametrically to optimize these installations using a standard kit of parts?

Scaffolding

2009-06-06T10:59:00.004-04:00

I've seen scaffolding and sidewalk sheds all over the world. Instead of being disappointed (as most seem to be) at not being able to see some monument or another, to me the scaffolding is a sign that the building or monument still lives as a part of the urban fabric. The scaffolding indicates an embracing, both literally and figuratively; it imprints the human scale onto an object. It is part of the life cycle of a building or monument. Men (and women) have to physically reach every part of the building in order to first build it and then often to renovate or clean it. In addition, it alters the space around it. Because it is temporary, it can be a more ephemeral extension of the building or monument itself. It blurs the hard line of the exterior because it provides incomplete shelter and for stability it must also attach itself and essentially become part of the 'host' structure. I remember being entranced when, in the late 1990's, the architect Michael Graves was hired to "design" the scaffolding to be erected for the renovation of the Washington Monument in the nation's capital. He said in an interview at the time, "I thought it was a great chance to give back to let's say an eight-year-old who comes from Des Moines with his parent or her parents to see the Washington Monument, and then discover that indeed it's covered with scaffolding -- what could you do to -- to somehow give them something that they didn't expect, give them two monuments -- the original monument, of course, and then this new scaffolding to sort of highlight or amplify the question of restoration.” You can see more of the original interview with Michael Graves here; but what is interesting is that several visitors were also interviewed in the same article and they expressed disappointment that the monument was covered. Why do we see scaffolding as ugly?

ad hoc infrastructures infrastructure

2009-06-02T23:23:00.003-04:00

Trying to build some momentum here...there are still many open threads, but for now I'll just report on some progress in the NYSCA project. As of the beginning of April, I have the equipment necessary to do the scaffolding study mentioned in posts from last July. See here. This is the time lapse package provided by Harbortronics (image above from their website).

Current threads....

2009-02-25T20:24:00.005-05:00

...and the attempt to tie them up a bit...

I'm currently researching fallout shelters. "What does this have to do with scaffolding?" you ask? Well, it could. So far, I've found surprisingly little information on the official "Community Fallout Shelter Program" established in 1961 under the auspices of the Department of Defense Office of Civil Defense. But everyone living in NYC is familiar with the fallout shelter signs on many public and private buildings. How did these spaces come to be designated as such? And under what specific conditions were private structures to be opened up to public use by all?

The author Margot A. Henriksen, in her book Dr. Strangelove's America (1997), speaks of a time in the U.S. when near hysteria gripped the nation. She cites a 1961 episode of The Twilight Zone called "The Shelter" as an example. In this episode, erstwhile friends nearly massacre each other in an attempt to shelter in the only safe place available, the concrete bunker of the neighborhood "sawbones," whose birthday party is the setting interrupted by the bomb scare, and whose disaster preparations had been the subject of ribbing at the aforementioned party only minutes before the mayhem began. Did no planners consider the mood of the time, which encouraged individual survival strategies over the collective well-being? I'm really curious to find out what planners envisioned would be the exact sequence of events to have taken place between the announcement of an emergency and the occupation of the basement of a private apartment building. I've just discovered that my own apartment building is/was a fallout shelter. Would the residents of my co-op have attempted to repel all neighbors so they could hoard the Federally subsidized supplies that were supposedly stored here? I mean, we now live in a time when an employee of a big-box store was trampled to death by shoppers eager to "Save money. Live better." Was it so different then?

The point is that our government was ostensibly relying upon a network of public and private structures to provide temporary shelter for millions of people across the country. This formed the basis of a civil defense infrastructure. Are there other such analogous forms of ad hoc infrastructure?

exurban sites 3

2009-02-17T23:17:00.003-05:00

How might we re-purpose a surplus of lightweight, modular and transient structural systems?

urban site

2009-02-17T23:14:00.003-05:00

Where is the boundary between public domain and private infrastructure?

abandoned structures

2008-10-13T20:53:00.002-04:00

Bannerman's Island Arsenal is an abandoned depot on Pollepel Island in the Hudson River south of Beacon, NY. The island is now part of the Hudson Highlands State Park.

repurposed infrastructures

2008-10-13T20:38:00.002-04:00

These are photos of “New York City Waterfalls” by Olafur Eliasson and “Playing the Building” at the Battery Maritime Building, by David Byrne. Since these are above all musings on infrastructure, it seems appropriate to point out these examples, recently on view in lower Manhattan.

exurban sites 2

2008-07-29T23:01:00.004-04:00

Can scaffolding maintain utility without the city?

open space

2008-07-29T22:23:00.007-04:00

The first part of the Mayor's "Open Space Initiative" in plaNYC 2030 is to open the city's school playgounds to the public for use as instant parkland. Can this model for the dual use of public property be translated to other resources, both public and private?

it's official!

2008-07-28T23:17:00.002-04:00

I would like to thank the New York State Council on the Arts for its generous support of this endeavour through a 2008 grant from the Architecture, Planning, and Design Program. I'll post more of the proposal in the coming days.

exurban sites 1

2008-07-27T19:10:00.000-04:00

chrysalis new york

2008-07-27T18:44:00.004-04:00

For the past several years, the building boom in New York City has meant that you can't walk a block without encountering scaffolding. It's not just condos...Enforcement of the codes requiring that landlords protect the public sidewalks when inspectors deem their building facades in need of repair adds to the diaphanous buildup. How does scaffolding affect street life? Will these temporary constructions continue to proliferate? What will happen when this massive mobilization ends?

diagramming

2008-07-27T18:32:00.003-04:00

street section

street section with scaffold

public domain

extended scaffold

speculative section

can scaffolding outgrow the city?

2008-07-27T18:15:00.005-04:00

The posts to follow will show a series of speculations or hypotheticals. These are simply a starting point (or points) focusing on scaffolding itself – a ubiquitous part of our urban environment that usually goes unnoticed. An unscientific and admittedly rather anecdotal examination of New York City’s landscape over the last several years has prompted a series of questions.

-Can the public sector benefit at the infrastructural level from a boom that has benefited the narrow segment of the populace who can afford it?
-Can private infrastructure be expropriated for public use and then returned when the need is no longer urgent?
-Can this simple building technology serve other needs?

investigation:instigation

2008-07-27T18:01:00.006-04:00

Scaffolding is a permanent yet transient component of the urban landscape. The goal of this project is to be accomplished in two phases:
1. Study its use and exploitation and effects on urban sites in New York through site observation, drawing documentation and the installation of time-lapse cameras at building site(s) where scaffolding is being installed;
2. Design research to explore and present new potentialities for its deployment.
In a recent issue of Metropolis Magazine, author Karrie Jacobs posits that the task of progressive thinking and problem solving has fallen to local governments in the absence of strong leadership at the national level. At a time when infrastructure is increasingly being privatized and conservative economic forces are extending protections to capital markets on an unfathomable scale, this proposal is part speculation and part manifesto.

inauguration

2008-05-01T23:18:00.001-04:00

this is the inaugural post for ad hoc infrastructures...