Building Bodies for Work text

BUILDING BODIES FOR WORK We know Flint as a place of decency and optimism, where a concerned and committed citizenry -- that includes teacher Glenn, police officer and poet Brian, organizer Wendy, squatter Keith, Land Bank administrator Lucille, and homesteader Adam -- prototypes a new future for people throughout the Rust Belt.

This proposal gives process and form to our beliefs in the residents of Flint.

First, process innovations. The $25,000 budget advances wages (as early summer internships and professional subcontracts) among Job Corps trainees pursuing careers in Carpentry and Painting, Mott Community College degree candidates in Building and Construction Technology, underemployed contractors, and students from a regional Architecture program. Building skills and design intelligence will flow to and among local participants as the submitting team (all architecture professors and licensed architects) provides lessons in designing, materializing, practicing, deconstructing, and remantling.

Second, form innovations. Totems emerge from the past and face the future, lending physical form to the latent potential and creative energy that is Flint. No cost materials are extracted at abandoned properties or auto industry remains. The totems, standing along Saginaw, share an armature of auto parts racks; each features a distinct deconstruction palette: lumber from fallen garages, charred wood from house fires, and more (several determined by local participants). Extended and open bases create moments of comfort, conversation, and commerce.

We aspire to be of use. Alongside local students, contractors, and citizens Flint is imagined, again, as a place of people, potential, and innovation.

Together, we will build bodies for work.