HARRISON ATELIER 1
Performance overlays space.
A performance occurs whenever one looks, whenever one moves, gestures or inadvertently acts, or even meeting another’s gaze—and not just a human gaze, either. We perform and are performed in space at every moment, to the degree that the occupation of space is a constant performance. A design provides a script—albeit an open ended one—for the performance of its users. One could argue that the actuality of design comes into focus in considering how it engages an audience, how it imprints on the energies of the human body and on the bodies of other species. Design, in our understanding, offers a powerful medium to explore the performative layers that animate our environment. Founded in 2009 by Ariane and Seth Harrison, Harrison Atelier has designed three internationally recognized performance-installations. Harrison Atelier’s architecture, performance and design works explore the impact of technology on culture. Each area of work reflects the firm’s interest in exploring the “posthuman” entanglement of human, technology and nature within the built environment. Harrison Atelier has partnered with world-renowned choreographers and performing artists to design and create multi-disciplinary performance projects. Performative Pavilions: 6 14 24 28
Birch-Burst Folly Species Wall & Pavilions Sightlines Pavilion Monarch Pavilion
Project under developement Wall and Folly system, Tannerville NY 2014 Project under development Performance Platform, Fire Island NY, 2013
Performance Installations: 34 Veal 40 Pharmacophore 1, 2, 3 48 Anchises
The Invisible Dog, Brooklyn, NY, World Stage Design 2013 Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York, NY 2011 Abrons Art Center, New York, NY, Bournmouth, UK 2010
Speculative projects: 54 58 64
Yaroslavl Theater Building Prague Theater Building Water Moghul’s Mansion
Competition, 2013 Competition, 2011, first round Competition, ECAL, 2013, first place
Writing 70
Architectural Theories of the Environment: Posthuman Territory Routledge 2013
Performative Pavilions
Birch-burst Pavilion
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PROJECT: Birch-Burst invites visitors to experience the illusory nature of seemingly static forms. From a distance, a visitor perceives a tent-shaped volume, or perhaps an array of tangled saplings. Yet once inside, the visitor discovers that the ornamental logic of its canopy is three-dimensional and coheres as a pattern of stars and arcs. Its title, Birch-Burst, references several conditions on Socrates park site, as well as tent paradigm in the garden folly tradition. The Oriental Tent Folly was popularized in the 18th century as a fabric structure that could be erected cheaply and quickly for seasonal use. Yet such popularity also produced variants, at the Parc Monceau in Paris or Drottningholm in Sweden, that were longer-term structures made of painted wood and metal yet retained the shape of the fabric tent. We were inspired by its ornamental pattern, which we rendered more permanent as an interwoven lattice canopy. The site at Socrates Park hosts an array of birch trees. The Birch Tree is a pioneer species. In remediating devastated ground, the birch paves the way for more shade-resistant species that eventually supplant the birch. We draw on the image of the birch grove as one of ephemeral presence.
SETTING: Proposal for Socrates Sculpture Park.
PERFORMANCE: Our garden folly produces star-like patterns that slip in and out of coherency depending on viewing position. Made of maderials common in gardens, our BirchBurst Folly can be easily dissassembled into nine hexagonal units that can be distributed among community gardens for climbing vegetation.
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PLAN SEQUENCE
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CONSTRUCTION DIAGRAM
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Species Wall and Pavilion PROJECT: The species wall pavilion produces an acoustic and light block, as well as a varied habitat for animal and plant species in the area. In addition to experimenting with species density, the wall presumes that in a future of increased urbanization, non-human species will be forced into inceasing proximity to roadside traffic. This wall addresses this condition by producing species habitat that mitigrates the roadside noise by absorbing and reflecting sound. The wall also anticipates a continued diminishing of the forest fire cycle and seeks to promote biodiversity in ways that mimic the beneficial effects of the fire cycle. The cast-concrete panels of the wall and pavilion take inspiration from wood burl, a tree growth in which the grain has grown in a deformed manner. It is commonly found in the form of a rounded outgrowth on a tree trunk or branch that is filled with small knots from dormant buds.
SETTINGS: A 300 linear foot expanse of a truck-riven country route bordering a 10-acre private property in Tannerville, NY. Country route 25 bounds the Tannersville site. In addition to increasing truck traffic, the route is salted from November through April because of the area’s heavy snows. The road contributes sound, vibration, light and minerals to this environment.
MATERIALS: Cast concrete 2’ x 2’ panels, Plywood backing, 4”x4” posts and beams. Acoustablock vinyl sheathing, acoustic foam infill.
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TAXONOMY The site represents 6 ecological zones. The annotated diagram describes the interactions among species and condiions for biodiversity and species density that results from the performance of the Species Wall.
ZONE 1 PRE-FIRE (MAPLE/PINE STAND)
SOIL PH (ACID-ALKALINE)
BLACK CAPPED CHICKADEE (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)
ZONE 2 PRE-FIRE (MAPLE/PINE STAND)
ZONE 3 LATE STAGE FIRE SUCCESSION
AMERICAN ROBIN(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)
ALDER FLYCATCHER(14)(15)(16)(17)(18) LEAF LITTER
SHADE HANDSOME SEDGE(11)(12)(13)
SOIL MOISTURE
Black Capped Chickadee (1) Range Extent Comments: This species is resident from western and central Alaska eastward across central and southern Canada to Newfoundland, and south to northwestern California, southern Utah, central New Mexico, Kansas, central Missouri, central Indiana, and northern New Jersey, and at higher elevations to the southern Appalachians. Wanders irregularly south in winter. (2) G
Nesting phenology varies geographically. Examples of known egg dates include: late April to mid-June in Illinois; early May to mid-July in Massachusetts; late May to early June in Nova Scotia; mid-April to late June in Oregon; and mid-April to early July in Michigan. Clutch size is 5-10 (usually 6-8). Incubation lasts usually 12-13 days. Young are tended by both parents, fledge 12-16 days after hatching. Initially fledglings a
plemental food appeared to influence movements more so than it did winter survival, but in Wisconsin there was evidence that bird feeders influenced actual survival rates (6) Non-Migrant (7) Palustrine Habitat(s): Riparian (8) Terrestrial Habitat(s): Forest - Hardwood, Forest - Mixed, Old field, Shrubland/chaparral, Suburban/orchard, Woodland - Hardwood, Woodland - Mixed Special Habitat Factors: Standing snag/ho
Granivore, Invertivore Immature Food Habits: Frugivore, Granivore, Invertivore Food Comments: Eats mainly insects and other small invertebrates, and their eggs and immature stages, and seeds and fruits; forages mainly on woody twigs, branches, and stems (10) Length: 13 centimeters Weight: 11 grams Handsome Sedge (11)General Description: Carex formosa is a densely tufted perennial grass like plant. Its leav
mm long (12)Habitat Comments: Typically occurs in or at the edge of limey swamps, seeps, or bottomland forests, but known to occur in moist, rich upland forests. Can also occur in disturbed habitats such as road edges and disturbed prairies.(13)Associated Species: Red Maple (Acer rubrum)Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum) Limestone Meadow Sedge (Carex granularis) Shagbark Hickory (Carya ovata) Silky Dogwood
of the tyrant flycatcher family. (15) Adults have olive-brown upperparts, browner on the wings and tail, with whitish underparts; they have a white eye ring, white wing bars, a small bill and a short tail. The breast is washed with olive-grey. The upper part of the bill is grey; the lower part is orangish. At one time, this bird was included with the very similar Willow Flycatcher in a single species, "Traill's Flycatcher". (16) The
They may eat some berries and seeds.(18) This bird's song is a wheezed ree-BEE-a. The call is a quick preet. American Robin (19) Size & Shape American Robins are fairly large songbirds with a large, round body, long legs, and fairly long tail. Robins are the largest North American thrushes, and their profile offers a good chance to learn the basic shape of most thrushes. Robins make a good reference point for com
stand erect, beak tilted upward, to survey their environs. When alighting they habitually flick their tails downward several times. In fall and winter they form large flocks and gather in trees to roost or eat berries. (22) Habitat American Robins are common across the continent in gardens, parks, yards, golf courses, fields, pastures, tundra, as well as deciduous woodlands, pine forests, shrublands, and forests regenera
grass. The finished nest is 6-8 inches across and 3-6 inches high. (24) Nest Placement Female robins choose the nest sites, which are typically on one or several horizontal branches hidden in or just below a layer of dense leaves. Nests are typically in the lower half of a tree, although they can be built as high as the treetop. American Robins also nest in gutters, eaves, on outdoor light fixtures, and other structures. In w
head cocked to one side. Robins sometimes fight over worms that others have caught. During fall and winter robins often roost in large flocks and spend much more time in trees. In spring, males attract females by singing, raising and spreading their tails, shaking their wings and inflating their white-striped throats. When pairs are forming in spring, you may see a display in which a male and female approach each o
caused by an introduced, rapidly spreading fungal disease (white-nose syndrome) (27) Total adult population size is unknown but certainly exceeds 100,000 and was estimated at around 6.5 million as of 2006. Individual maternity colonies often include (or at least recently included) hundreds (sometimes thousands) of individuals. Population size is now much smaller. (28) Special precautions should be taken when m
(WNS) that has already resulted in several local extirpations and that is ultimately expected to cause regional and likely rangewide extinction of the little brown myotis in a very short ecological time frame...." projected that "regional species extinction will likely occur, with 99% certainty, in or before 2026...eliminating at least the core northeastern range of the species, which clearly constitutes a significant portion
33-41 mm; braincase rises gradually from rostrum; greatest length of skull 14-16 mm; length of upper toothrow 5.0-6.6 mm (31) Reproduction Comments: Usually mates in September-October. Ovulation and fertilization are delayed until spring. Gestation lasts 50-60 days. Gives birth to 1 litter of 1 young, late spring-early summer. Females produce first young usually in first (Indiana, New Mexico) or second year (Briti
near their summer range (33) Palustrine Habitat(s): Bog/fen, forested wetland, herbaceous wetland, Riparian (34) Terrestrial Habitat(s): Forest - Hardwood, Forest - Mixed, Grassland/herbaceous, Old field, Shrubland/chaparral, Suburban/orchard, Urban/edificarian, Woodland - Hardwood, Woodland - Mixed (35) Habitat Comments: These bats use a wide range of habitats and often use human-made structures for restin
trees. Microclimate conditions suitable for raising young are relatively narrow, and availability of suitable maternity sites may limit the species' abundance and distribution. (36) Food Comments: Often hunts over water or along the margins of lakes and streams; consumes flying insects, especially mosquitoes, midges, caddisflies, moths, various hoppers, and smaller beetles, sometimes spiders. Insects with wingsp
Wisconsin, at least one in Indiana, and a few potentially viable smaller occurrences in these and other states, notably Minnesota, and at least one large population in New York. The Karner Blue has become management dependent in all parts of its range, and would be unlikely to persist more than a decade or two if management were to cease. This subspecies was usually found in uncommon and declining natu
urbanization and pine farms, and out of control deer habeen major cause of local or general decline. (39) The dorsal side of the male is silvery blue or dark blue with narrow black margins. The females are grayish brown dorsally, with irregular bands of orange inside the narrow black border on the upper wings. Both sexes are slate gray on the ventral side with the orange bands showing more regularity, and black sp
New York and New Hampshire, habitat typically is in sandplain communities, such as grassy openings within very dry, sandy pitch pine/scrub oak barrens. In the Midwest, the habitat is also dry and sandy, including oak savanna and jack pine barrens, and less often dune communities. Within the overall coummunity remnant inhabited by a metapopulation any patch of foodplant in open to semi-shaded setting is l
Wild lupine is the only known larval food plant and is therefore closely tied to the butterfly's ecology and distribution. A variety of other understory plants associated with the habitat serve as nectar sources for the adults. Adult males also drink from moist sand. (46) Apparently always two broods each year. Eggs that have overwintered from the previous summer hatch in April. Near the end of May or early in June, th
earlier in advanced seasons. Adults typically fly into about mid August. Individual adults live an average of about five days, but females at least can occasionally live for two weeks. This time, the eggs are laid among plant litter or on grass blades at the base of the lupines, or on lupine pods or stems, and these eggs do not hatch until the following spring. Oak Hairstreak (47) Habitats are usually rather ordinary oak fo
the Type specimen for the widespread subspecies S. f. ontario might have really come from Ontario, there have been no know specimens or photographs from Canada in over 120 years. (49) Non-migrant (50) Terrestrial Habitat(s): Forest - Hardwood, Savanna, Shrubland/chaparral, Woodland - Hardwood, Woodland - Mixed (51)Habitat commentsa variety of dry oak dominated forest and woodland situations includi Stem leaves moderate-sized and lingulate; apex rounded and often slightly apiculate; border strong. Branch fascicles with two spreading branches and one hanging branch. (54) The species grows on bark, especially at the base of hardwood trees. (55) Mosses yellowish to golden-brown, shiny, in flat mats. Stems creeping, subpinnately branched; stems and branches terete, not or very slightly flattened. Leaves erect,
of the range; still common in other areas; decline has been rapid and the cause is not yet fully understood. (57) The range extends from western Connecticut (formerly), southeastern New York (virtually extirpated), northern New Jersey, and northern Pennsylvania southwestward through western Maryland, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, and northern and western Virginia (from the Blue Ridge westward) to nor
River is generally accepted as the southern range limit. (58) Possibly widespread deforestation and habitat fragmentation contributed to the initial decline of the species, isolating populations and eliminating dispersal and travel corridors. Deforestation and associated reduction/elimination of food resources currently may be a threat to some local woodrat populations. Causes of the continuing decline are not yet
ears, and a long, furry, bicolored tail. described the coloration as follows: "In winter the coloration above is buffy gray to pale cinnamon, heavily overlaid with black. The head and the sides of the body are buffy gray, while the axillae, or armpits, are creamy buff. The throat, belly, and feet are white, the fur being white to the roots except along the sides of the belly, where the basal color is pale leaden gray. The tail i
median spine, ends about even with the front of the first molar, which is high, flat-crowned, and prismatic. The coronoid process of the mandible is well developed (62) Woodrats are basically solitary and unsociable, frequently fighting one another. Each lives alone in its house, except when breeding and raising young. found "a great deal of individuality" in temperament, behavior, food preferences, etc., among hi
pieces of glass, paper, etc. compiled lists of such materials. The function of this compulsive collecting is unknown. Scats are deposited in special latrine areas, apparently used by more than one individual, or over a long period of time. reported seeing such heaps measuring 45 x 25 x 5 cm. A captive kept by Patterson (1933) voided 3 to 84 fecal pellets per day. Similarly, urinating spots are used, leaving dark stains 1
within rock habitat, may extend beyond the protection of rocks up to 160 meters from the den site. Den shifts tend be less than 100 meters with a median of 40 m, and woodrats, particularly females, often live their entire lives in the same outcrop. There are reports of large unidirectional movements of displaced woodrats, e.g., 1 km and 4 km, as well as naturally dispersing individuals, 0.3-1 km, 1 km, and up to 6 km within rock habitat. However, woodrats display unwary behavior when crossing roads, and roadkills have been documented.
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ZONE 4 MIDDLE STAGE FIRE SUCCESSION
ZONE 5 RIPARIAN HABITAT
ZONE 6 EARLY STAGE FIRE SUCCESSION
BROWN BAT(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36) KARNER BLUE(37)(38)(39)(40)(41)(42)(43)(44)(45)(46)
MOSS AND SPHAGNUM(53)(54)(55)
OAK HAIRSTREAK(47)(48)(49)(50)(51)(52)
ALLEGHENY WOODRAT(42)(43)(44)(45)
General Description: Black cap and throat, white cheeks, buffy flanks, and white-edged wing feathers. Length 13 cm, wingspan 21 cm. (3) Diagnostic Characteristics: The amount of white on the outer edge of the greater coverts is the best character for distinguishing PARUS ATRICAPILLUS and P. CAROLINENSIS in the field, but birds in the contact zone may not be identified with certainty (4) Reproduction Comments:
are fed by their parents, disperse usually 3-4 weeks after fledging. Pairbond may persist over several years. (5) Ecology Comments: In Massachusetts, once they became breeders, males lived an average of 3.2 years, females lived an average of 2.5 years. In Alberta, winter survival rates were higher in a food-supplemented area than in a control area, but breeding densities in the two areas were similar. In Pennsylvania, sup-
ollow tree Habitat Comments: Black-capped chickadees inhabit deciduous and mixed deciduous/coniferous forest and woodland, willow thickets, cottonwood groves, old fields, and wooded suburban areas. Nests are in cavities dug by both sexes in trees, especially dead trees or rotten branches, sometimes in existing natural cavities, old woodpecker holes, bird boxes, or similar sites (9) Adult Food Habits: Frugivore,
ves are strap like and 3-7 mm wide. Leaves at the base of the plants have maroon bases. Arising from the leaves at the bases of the plants are stalks that are 30-80 cm tall. Coming off the upper part of the stalks are secondary branches with elongated clusters of small inconspicuous flowers/fruits at the tips. The secondary branches and flower clusters arch. The flowers mature into small green fruits (perigynia) 3.5-5.0
d (Cornus amomum) White Ash (Fraxinus americana) Herb-robert (Geranium robertianum) Hophornbeam (Ostrya virginiana) Buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica) Eastern Poison Ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) American Elm (Ulmus americana) Southern Arrowwood (Viburnum dentatum var. lucidum) Northern Prickly-ash (Zanthoxylum americanum) Alder Flycatcher (14)(Empidonax alnorum) is a small insect-eating bird
eir breeding habitat is deciduous thickets, often alders or willows, near water across Canada, Alaska and the northeastern United States. They make a cup nest low in a vertical fork in a shrub. These birds migrate to South America, usually selecting winter habitat near water. (17) They wait on a perch near the top of a shrub and fly out to catch insects in flight, also sometimes picking insects from foliage while hovering.
mparing the size and shape of other birds, too. (20) Color Pattern American Robins are gray-brown birds with warm orange underparts and dark heads. In flight, a white patch on the lower belly and under the tail can be conspicuous. Compared with males, females have paler heads that contrast less with the gray back. (21) Behavior American Robins are industrious and authoritarian birds that bound across lawns or
ating after fires or logging. (23) Nest Description Females build the nest from the inside out, pressing dead grass and twigs into a cup shape using the wrist of one wing. Other materials include paper, feathers, rootlets, or moss in addition to grass and twigs. Once the cup is formed, she reinforces the nest using soft mud gathered from worm castings to make a heavy, sturdy nest. She then lines the nest with fine dry
western prairies, American Robins may build their nests on the ground or in thickets, while in Alaska they sometimes nest on buildings or cliffs. (25) When foraging on the ground, the American Robin runs a few steps, then stops abruptly. In long grass, robins may hop or fly just above the ground powered by slow, powerful wingbeats. American Robins often find worms by staring, motionless, at the ground with the
other holding their bills wide open and touching them. American Robins are strong, straight, and fast fliers. Brown Bat (26) Widespread in North America from Alaska-Canada boreal forest south through most of the contiguous United States to central Mexico; formerly very abundant, recently underwent severe decline in abundance in the core of the range in northeastern North America as a result of high mortality
mine and cave surveys are conducted during breeding periods and winter hibernation. Hibernating bats are sensitive to human disturbance. Disturbance during hibernation can cause bats to use up stored fat reserves and starve to death. Disturbance of breeding colonies can cause young to lose their grasp and fall to their death. (29) Population is "in sharp decline due to the rapidly spreading white-nose syndrome
n of the species' range in terms of population numbers, geographical distribution, resiliency, and habitat composition. (30) General Description: Cinnamon-buff to dark brown above, buffy to pale gray below; hairs on back have long glossy tips; ear when laid forward reaches approximately the nostril; tragus about half as high as ear; calcar without keel; length of head and body 41-54 mm, ear 11.0-15.5 mm, forearm
ish Columbia). In British Columbia, may delay or forego reproduction in wet years. Survival for a decade may be fairly common; a few live as long as 20-30 years; females may be reproductive to an age of at least 12 years. Most summer colonies range from 50 to 2500 individuals (average 400) (32) In the northeast, may migrate hundreds of miles between winter and summer habitats; in the west, believed to hibernate
ng and maternity sites; they also use caves and hollow trees. Foraging habitat requirements are generalized; foraging usually occurs in woodlands near water. Winter hibernation sites (caves, tunnels, abandoned mines, and similar sites) generally have a relatively stable temperature of about 2-12 C . Maternity colonies commonly are in warm sites in buildings (e.g., attics) and other structures; also infrequently in hollow
pans of 1/8-1/2" are pursued. Prey are detected by echolocation at a range of 1 m Karner Blue (37) The Karner Blue is extirpated in Maine, New Hampshire (but reintroduced), Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Ohio (but likely to be reintroduced), Ontario; and also New Jersey and Iowa if it really occurred in those states. However, there are still several substantial protected metapopulation occurrences in Michigan and
ural communities such as inland pine barrens and oak savannas, or in artificial habitats like airports where such communities formerly existed. (38) Despite listing some habitats continue to deteriorate, for example due to deer at Albany. Some populations may simply be too small to survive long term. Some of the better populations probably are now relatively secure. Inappropriate fire regimens, loss of habitat to
pots circled with white. (40) Basically sedentary, but adults do sometimes move at least two kilometers, probably more. Most probably never go more than 100-200 meters from place of emergence. Some evidence that dispersal is most likely where habitat quality is declining or where nectar is scarce. (41) Terrestrial Habitat(s): Grassland/herbaceous, Old field, Sand/dune, Savanna, Woodland - Conifer (42) In eastern
likely to be used. Females lay eggs on or near wild lupine plants, and main requirement seems to be thousands of stems of lupine in the short term. Apparently persistence from xerothermic interval to present requires thousands of hectares of suitable community/habitat in which patches of occupied habitat probably shifted over time. (43) Adult Food Habits: Nectarivore (44) Immature Food Habits: Herbivore (45)
he larva pupate and adult butterflies emerge very late in May and well into June in most years. The adults are typically in flight for the first 10 to 15 days of June, when the wild lupine is in bloom. New eggs are laid on or near the lupine plants, and hatch in about one week, and the larvae feed for about three weeks. They then pupate and the second brood adults appear in the second or third week of July, sometimes
forest or woodlands, although also there are occurrences on some inland barrens. (48) Range Extent Comments: Eastern Massachusetts down the Atlantic Coast and Piedmont to southern Florida, west to central Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma and eastern Texas, and disjunctly northeastern New Mexico and adjacent southeastern Colorado; but absent from most of Pennsylvania, most of Ohio and the Appalachians. While
ing sometimes barrens. Probably far more general than realized as adults apparently are mostly in the canopy. For subspecies autolycus: a variety of woods, oak brush and edges (52) Food Comments: Larva on new growth of oaks in spring. One brood in all parts of range. Moss and Sphagnum (53) Plants small, soft and slender; capitulum small, sometimes with a large terminal bud. Stem pale brown, green or red. oblong-lanceolate, slenderly acuminate, serrulate above. Autoicous. Setae 4.5-15 mm long, yellow- to dark-brown; persistent; peristome teeth dark and obscure, densely papillose throughout, strongly bordered; segments of endostome shorter than the teeth and adherent to them, densely papillose Allegheny Wooodrat (56) Fairly large range in the eastern United States, but extirpated or declining over about 35%
rtheastern Alabama (observed in several cave systems) and northwestern North Carolina (Hall 1981), with isolated populations north of the Ohio River in southern Ohio (where recent surveys failed to locate this species; W. Peneston, pers. comm., cited by Mengak 2002) and southern Indiana (Whitaker and Hamilton 1998). Although Hall (1981) showed N. magister in the northwestern corner of Georgia, the Tennessee
t fully understood, but some hypotheses have been offered. Probably the explanation lies in a combination of these and other factors that may differ locally in importance Parasitism by the raccoon roundworm (Baylisascaris procyonis) has been identified as a significant cause of mortality and a probable major factor in the decline in several states (59) A large grayish-brown rat with white underparts, large eyes and
is sharply bicolored, blackish brown above, white below. The summer pelage is slightly paler and shorter. Immatures are grayer than adults, particularly on the belly. (60) Total length 35.5-44.7 cm; tail length 16-21 cm; mass 394-500g (61) The skull is elongated, about 5.0 cm long and 2.5 cm at its greatest width, with "marked interorbital constriction and relatively small auditory bullae. The palate, lacking a posterior
is captive Allegheny woodrats. When upset, woodrats may chatter their teeth or stomp their hind feet. Near the nests are found piles of sticks and trash called middens. Part of the materials found in woodrat houses and middens appears to be cached food in the form of nuts, seeds, berries, cuttings of vegetation, and mushrooms. But there may also be miscellaneous bits of trash, including rags, bits of metal, bones,
15-20 cm in diameter on rocks. Though solitary and territorial, woodrats most often occur in clusters due to patchiness of the rock outcrop, talus, and cave habitat, and conform to the concept of a metapopulation. Home ranges are small, 0.26-0.6 ha; usually less than about 90 m across. Poole (1940) reported movements of 183 m and 92 m by two woodrats in Pennsylvania. Foraging movements, while often focused
m. While woodrats can travel long distances between patches, as distances increase, the chance of successful emigration between patches is likely to decrease, particularly in the absence of protective rock crevices. Barriers to dispersal are not clearly known, as woodrats have been documented to traverse seemingly inhospitable terrain, including roads, small streams, and small fields, though movements are largely
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Small birds
SMALL BIRDS SMALL BIRDS SMALL BIRDS SMALL BIRDS
LARGE BIRDS LARGE BIRDS Large birds LARGE BIRDS LARGE BIRDS
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Medium-sized birds
MEDIUM BIRDS MEDIUM BIRDS MEDIUM BIRDS MEDIUM BIRDS
HAIRSTREAK KARNER OAKOAK HAIRSTREAK ANDAND KARNER BLUEBLUE Oak Hairstreak and AND Karner blue OAK HAIRSTREAK KARNER BLUE OAK HAIRSTREAK AND KARNER BLUE
Brown bat 1 BROWN BAT BROWN BAT BAT BROWN BROWN BAT
ALLEGHENY WOODRAT Allegheny woodrat ALLEGHENY WOODRAT ALLEGHENY ALLEGHENY WOODRAT WOODRAT
Brown bat 2 BROWN BROWN BATBAT (2) (2)
BROWN BROWN BAT (2)BAT (2)
MOSS/SPHAGNUM MossMOSS/SPHAGNUM / Sphagnum MOSS/SPHAGNUM MOSS/SPHAGNUM
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Sightlines Pavilion
PROJECT: The pavilion creates multiple and differing effects—light, shadow and sound—for its varied audience, from performance spectators to casual bypassers. Initial concepts for the pavilion deploy steel supports and wire to define multiple interior spaces; lengths of wire are organized according to a structural algorithm and frame novel sight-lines, while plan and sections transform poché into a field of points. Building on Harrison Atelier’s prior installations that deploy dance and sound, the design of the interior pavilion offers a set and framework for live music and dance.
MATERIALS: Steel frame, metal wire or transparent fishing wire.
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2001 2004
Monarch Pavilion
2007 2010
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PROJECT:
An open-air temporary dance platform for a private residence in Fire Island, NY. The performance platform unfolds to enclose a 900 sf stage with stepped seating, the performance space does not impinge on existing trees. This performance platform can take a number of configurations, providing multiple opportunities to frame performance work against a landscape of sea, forest or salt marsh. In its dormant phase throughout the winter, the pavilion occupies just 300 sf. A mosquito-net mesh protects the interior space. 29
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X 17.9’ 28.5’ X 28.5’
22.2’ X 17.9’
28.5’ X 22.2’ X 17.9’
28.5’ X 28.5’
PLATFORM ITERATIONS
28.5’ X 28.5’
opposite, left to right: Platform iterations - 22.2’ x 17.9’, 28.5 x 28.5’, 28.5’ x 22.2’ x 17.9’ left: 28.5’ X 22.2’ X 17.9’ Wireframe model of pavilion PLATFORM ITERATIONS
frame structure @ 20’-0” 28.5’ X 22.2’ X 17.9’
main stage
PLATFORM ITERATIONS
movable platforms for stage/seating seating platform fabric seams for aluminum shade cloth
aluminum poles with anchors
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Performance Installations
Veal:
Five installations
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PERFORMANCE: VEAL addresses the life cycle of industrial food animals, mapping the broader ecological implications of industrialized meat production. In five instrumentinstallations that intertwine with music and dancer performances, VEAL reveals the inhumane presumption at the core of a vast economy hidden from public view. Five installations mapped the life-cycle of industrially raised food animals: a wall of steel lyres with frets in the form of blastocysts; a pen of twelve veal-white bagpipe creatures, mouths equipped with bagpipe chanters; a translucent pen for singers; a projected backdrop of digitally-designed animal feed; and a vinyl and LED ceiling-scape recalling the algal blooms triggered in part by the run–off from industrial farms. The Invisible Dog Art Center, Brooklyn, NY. Performances from Feb. 7-9, 2013. Exhibitted in World Stage Design, Cardiff, Wales, September 2013.
AWARDS: Selected for exhibtion,World Stage Design, 2013. Cited in top 3 installation designs, WSD 2013. Selected for exhibition, ACSA 102, Miami, 2014. Review, Andrew Boyton, “We Surrounded Them,” New Yorker Cultual Blog, Feb. 15 2013
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“We Surrounded Them,” The New Yorker Culture Blog Andrew Boynton, February 15, 2013 “Such ominous intimations ran throughout “VEAL.” To be sure, it was a sombre work, a condemnation. One hears “veal” and, more often than not, thinks of dumb, frightened cattle penned in and raised only to be destroyed. This work made one think about how we use, and misuse, animals, but, with its spell-binding music, carefully crafted visual elements, and arresting movement, it was also an example of what’s possible when artists collaborate on something meaningful to them—making art in this way is how Harrison Atelier responds to the world.”
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Apollo’s Blastocyst Lyre
Marsyas’ penned Bagpipe-creatures
Crated Voices
The clang of technology resounds
The body of the beef is used to make a sound
The boxed singing voice contained
With the sweetness of the heavenly spheres:
Instrumented in life, Instrumented to death
In space assigned to sound production
Apollo inscribing his invisible laws into the herd.
And after death made into an instrument:
Is music coordinated by unseen supervisors?
The embryo is a lifeform constructed
The shape is the thing itself, gasketed, valved,
To develop into a meatform
A herd positioned on plinths.
Fit for the unchanging conditions of
Confinement prescripts efficiency in agribusiness;
manbuilt worlds:
The social animal, analogic, is always drooling
Paddocks, feed lots, transports, slaughterhouse.
With its most enthusiastic exhibitionism of the windpipe
We mute the variation in natural selection
Rounded out below by a windbag of concentric flows;
To build cows with meat traits
To bleat, it squeezes its guts: intemplerate, full, improvised,
Mass-produced for an ecology of production.
and impecunious.
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right and left: Section-perspective rendering of Invisible Dog Gallery and five installations. Lyrics by Seth Harrison. Perspectival plan of gallery below.
Digital Feed
Algal Bloom
Efficiency effaces the animal productive
In the way that we all know
monotony drowns the lowering
Computing power will mesh into
The chattel escapes the cow Capital floods into the river
things and flesh.
Marsyas and on to the sea
Technology will become an unseen microsystem
The music of transformations resounds its
Like mitochondrial respiration or photosynthesis
white noise song
Meat will grow bountifully from seed
Feed transforms to shit and meat, and soap, leather,
Into plantcreatures lacking nervous systems
gut strings, surfactants, drug products, blood products,
And animals will become architectural clients.
gelatin, glycerin, buttons, bone china, human food ingredients, and feed for other processed animals, including cows.
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Pharmacophore: a performance cycle
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PHARMACOPHORE 3: Pharmacophore 3: Architectural Placebo, performed at New York’s Storefront for Art and Architecture in November 2011, explores the interdependent desires of patients, scientists and the pharmaceuticals industry to treat with and be treated by drugs. The unique urban character of the Storefront for Art and Architecture, with its revolving walls, offered us the opportunity to blur the boundaries between performance space and street, seating and set, and spectator and performer. The installation was on display at Storefront from Nov. 22-Dec. 10, 2011. The performances were choreographed by Silas Riener and composed by Loren Dempster.
PHARMACOPHORE 2: Pharmacophore 2 was performed at the Orpheum Theater in Tannersville, NY in Auguest 2011, following a summer residency at the Catskill Mountain Foundation. The set pieces/costumes are inflatable vinyl elements that are also large adaptations of pharmacophoric structures in the five most prescribed psychotropic drugs. “Pharmacophores” are the chemical building blocks of drugs, structures known to act predictably within the body. The set pieces/costumes are large adaptations of pharmacophoric structures in the five most prescribed psychotropic drugs. The performance was choregraphed by Catherine Miller and composed by Loren Dempster.
PHARMACOPHORE 1: Pharmacophore 1 was performed at New York’s Storefront for Art and Architecture in December 2010, in the context of Storefront’s “Instant Architecture” event. This initial iteration sought to create a spatial dialogue between bodies and digital projections that derived from molecular structures of mood-altering pharmaceutical drugs. Choreographed by Catherine Miller and James McGinn, the movement took cues from a dynamic digital model.
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above: Elevation and plan renderings of gallery Seat-set elevation drawing
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“Pharma-Cultural Landscapes” Hyperallergic Jason Andrew, December 6, 2011 “The performance is successful in so man ways but best in how it totally blurs the border between place and non-place, inside and out, audience and non-audience, performer and pedestrian. It strikes the right balance between design and choreography with neither out doing the other. It’s egoless in its virtuosity.”
Steven Holl interviewed by Nina Rapaport Constructs, Spring 2012 “Even the audience was part of the conceptual aspect of the performance...we were carved into the place and that made it memorable.”
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PHARMACOPHORE 2 Orpheum Theater, Tannersville, NY, Auguest 2011.
right:
PHARMACOPHORE 1 Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York, NY, December 2010.
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Anchises
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ANCHISES: A co–creation between choreographer Jonah Bokaer and Harrison Atelier, Anchises gives visual and physical expression to the themes of aging, use and reuse of materials, and the role of space in determining the body’s range and potential. Featuring an intergenerational cast of five, Anchises was conceptualized and designed by by Seth and Ariane Harrison of Harrison Atelier. Anchises was commissioned by the Bournemouth Pavilion and premiered in Bournemouth in October 2010; it toured to the Arnolfini Theater in Bristol and to the Abrons Art Center in New York in November 2010. The performances were choreographed by Jonah Bokaer and composed by Loren Dempster. Performers Jonah Bokaer, Meg Harper, James McGinn Catherine Miller, Valda Setterfield Lighting Aaron Copp
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“From a Trojan War Hero, Lessons About Aging” New York Times, Roslyn Sulcas, November 18, 2010 “All are present at the outset, seated on or lying against squat blocks arranged in a shallow semicircle close to the front of the stage. Behind them is a stark arrangement of long plastic ropes, hanging from short, angled lengths of steel, and gathered at the bottom to form a loosehold-all for a tumbled collection of white columns. This design, by Harrison Atelier, is given equal billing with Mr. Bokaer in the program, and rightly so, since its visual power is not just retained but amplified as the piece develops.”
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Speculative Projects
Yaroslavl Performance Center
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PROJECT: For this 2013 competition, Harrison Atelier designed a dynamic center for the arts as a renovation of a disused stadium. One of the largest domes in the building houses an experimental theater, with clusters of domes allocated to rehearsal space, green rooms, costume and set ateliers. Passers-by become spectators for the activity in the ateliers: these spaces for creation and innovation are visible from the exterior of the building. Above these workshops, the northwest-corner of the building is hollowed out and faces an outdoor amphitheater, further calling attention to making sets and costume as a performative activity. The new theater and workshops memorialize Yaroslavl’s importance in Russian theater history: the first permanent professional theater in Russia was founded in 1756 by the Yaroslav actor Fydor Volkov, his brother Grigory and the director dramatist Aleksei Sumarokov. Their neo-classical tragedies and popular comedies helped free Russian theater of its dependence on foreign works and formed the basis of a new Russian theater tradition in the 18th century.
SETTING: Yaroslavl, Russia
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Prague Theater
Prague Performance Center 58
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PROJECT:
For the OISTAT 2011 Theater Architecture Competition, Harrison Atelier proposed a new transept for the church: a floating scaffold containing performance program. Our new Prague Theater takes contemporary dance out of the singular locus (black box or auditorium) and multiplies urban encounters with dance: open-air dance plaza, performance nave, cloistered dance floor, elevated stage, floating dressing space and a rooftop bar. The performative dimension of this new floating theater transforms passers by into spectators and performers. Ste. Anne’s Church Square, formerly a little used shortcut, becomes a vibrant urban performance space.
AWARDS: First round, OISTAT Theater Architecture, 2011.
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OISTAT Theatre Architecture Competition
ACE ACE CE ZA
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Water Mogul’s Mansion
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PROJECT: The Water-Mogul has redefined celebrity in terms of power: beyond products and consumerism, even beyond sustainability, his wealth is invested in new infrastructures that produce water. The 4,000-acre estate is a water plantation: an empire that produces water through a vast network of condensation domes. The iconography of the mansion speaks of the water empire: its façade bears water-bubble rustication, sluicing water columns and frothy motifs. Its thick walls radiate solar gain through cool winter nights, and the mansion sits on a plinth of water-channeling infrastructure. The estate creates water through condensation and containment: making water from moisture in the air and preventing water evaporation using both shallow and deep domes. The water condensation system collects 3,448 acre-feet per year, equivalent to 1,123,595,500 gallons of water/annum, or 2.7% of Nevada’s water allotment from the Virgin River.
AWARDS: Competition Winner, “Rapper’s Mansion Competition” sponsored by ECAL in Switzerland, 2013. Selected for exhibition, D3 “Unbuilt Visions,” Ankara, Turkey, 2014.
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FOYER SALON HALL BATHS KITCHEN RECORDING STUDIO VINTAGE WATER LIBRARY DINING ROOM SOLAR CHAPEL
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Performance in context.
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H A R R I S O N AT E L I E R
HARRISON ATELIER 649 MORGAN AVENUE, 3F BROOKLYN, NY 11222 WWW.HARRISONATELIER.COM SKYPE: HARRISONATELIER ARIANE@HARRISONATELIER.COM SETH@HARRISONATELIER.COM ALEX@HARRISONATELIER.COM STEPHEN@HARISONATELIER.COM
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