Thinking and Things

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SVA DESIGN RESEARCH 2015

Celebrating the thesis research of the SVA MFA Design Criticism Class of 2015 and the SVA MA Design Research Class of 2015

Published in conjunction with the Exploding Footnotes: Design Research in Action exhibition, May 13–18, 2015

SVA Department of Design Research, Writing & Criticism 136 West 21 Street, New York City designresearch.sva.edu @dcrit #explodingfootnotes

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Introduction The end of a school year is always bitter-sweet, but this one seems especially so, since we are saying a fond farewell to the last graduates of the MFA Design Criticism program (2008–2015), even as we cheer over the finish line the first graduates of the new MA Design Research, Writing & Criticism (2014–). To mark this transitional moment, we decided to organize an exhibition that turns the spotlight on the thesis research process.

“Exploding Footnotes: Design Research in Action” seeks to retrieve the gold dust often buried in footnotes at the bottom of the page, to expose and examine the research trails, the behind-the-scenes travails, legwork, drama, breakthroughs, doubts, and dead-ends that are a part-and-parcel of in-depth research, but normally smoothed over by the linear narrative of scholarly writing. By zeroing in on these tiny superscript numerals and the riches they contain, we celebrate the research process as well as its products. Many thanks to everyone who has helped us stage this exhibition, especially Superscript managing director Molly Heintz, graphic designer Neil Donnelly, and HAO / Holm Architecture Office principal Jens Holm.

This publication presents excerpts of the SVA Department of Design Research, Writing & Criticism Class of 2015’s thesis research, to accompany the exhibition and the Live Critique event, which takes place on May 13, 2015. As you turn its pages you’ll be invited to explore the weird-and-wonderful worlds of: digital prosthetics; design piracy; publishing-asperformance; critical thinking in architecture education; the branding of Space 2.0; the design

of death; the need for ethics and sustainability in fashion design education; Design Districts’ contradictory definitions of design; mid-century modern home preservation; and the rhetoric that shapes New York City public housing.

As you explore you may note some recurring refrains underscoring the research findings, such as the preponderance of peoples’ voices and of references to primary sources. This is because here in the SVA Department of Design Research, Writing & Criticism, we put great store by first-hand interviewing, archive research, and on-the-streets-reporting—or “research-bywalking-around,” as faculty member and urban critic Karrie Jacobs terms it. We put particular emphasis on interviewing techniques, which play an important part in gathering fresh perspectives, information, and new leads.

As part of their thesis research, all combined, the students have interviewed more than 200 people, visited almost 100 locations, and examined in the range of 500 primary documents, using skills developed in their Contemporary Issues and Reporting classes.

But no amount of research and reporting is meaningful without probing questions, analysis, and interpretation—approaches that have been honed through their Cultural Theory, Thesis Development, and History of Design, Architecture and Urbanism classes.

We hope you enjoy these stories about thinking and things and the surprising relationships between them.

— Alice Twemlow, Chair, SVA Department of Design Research, Writing & Criticism

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THINKING

6 Mariam Aldhahi on the creation of Design Districts and their varying definitions of “design.”

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12 Alper Besen on how critical thinking is taught, learned, and reflected upon in architecture education.

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16 Brittany Dickinson on fashion design education’s attempts to stitch sustainability and ethics into its pedagogy.

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20 Lauren Palmer on contemporary arts magazines’ engagement with the rhetoric of the live performance.

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26 Lisa Silbermayr on the impact of language in the political decisions and regulatory frameworks that shape New York’s public housing.

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THINGS

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32 Molly Butcher on the values, motivations, and concerns manifested in the material culture of the race to colonize Mars.

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36 Meg Farmer on the role of mediatization in influencing the differing approaches to the preservation of mid-century Modern domestic architecture in Southern California.

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42 Susan Merritt on what the design of burial containers say about changing attitudes towards death and burial practices in the US.

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46 Christina Milan on the shifting relationship between viewer and designed object in the digitization of design museums.

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50 Justin Zhuang on design piracy’s role as a force for innovation in the third industrial revolution.

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“The thing is, when you look at other design districts, they’re retail hubs,” the Dubai Design District’s Michela Celi explains.

“We aren’t just focused on retail, our business model is developed to become headquarters for design companies.”

“If your professor wants fish, you do fish,” an architecture student at GSAPP Columbia University tells me.

The fashion industry, which historically dictated its needs to design schools, now may need education to take the lead in enacting change.

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“Did we accidentally become a bar?” Molly Kleiman, the deputy editor of Triple Canopy, said, reflecting on the social success of her publication’s recent discussions, readings, workshops, performances, and parties.

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According to Sara Caples, principal of Caples Jefferson Architects, designing [for NYCHA] is a communicative challenge as much as it is a design challenge.

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THINKING Mariam Aldhahi

(Design) Districting: Urban Development, Transformation, and Revitalization in the Name of Design KEYWORDS

Mariam Aldhahi is a writer, researcher, and design editor at Huge, a digital design agency.

Interested in the intersection of design, urbanism, and writing, Mariam has worked with Rockwell Group, Travel and Leisure, Princeton Architectural Press, Storefront for Art and Architecture, and the Wolfsonian Museum on everything from strategy and marketing efforts to in-depth design writing. She is also a contributing author to BioArt, a book that examines the intersection of art and biology, to be published by Thames & Hudson UK in 2015. Mariam received SVA Design Research’s 2015 Maria Popova Scholarship for Homecoming to Purpose.

Commerce Community-building Control Culture Design Districts Design manuals Licensing guidelines Place-keeping Place-making Public engagement Semantics Streetscape Visual cohesiveness Zoning

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hello@mariamaldhahi.com @mariam_aldhahi mariamaldhahi.com

# ABSTRACT

The Design District is born out of the larger idea of districting— dividing land into segments as a means of providing order to a community and its leaders, those who control and regulate land by assigning specific functions to place.

If executed properly, these districts increase the scope of a specific industry. By increasing scope, they gain credibility that spills over into their larger communities. And once credibility is gained, a blending of commerce and culture takes effect, as districts begin to engage their audience.

This research explores the way in which the definition of “design” is being manipulated to cater to the wants of big investors and small business owners. What role does semantics play in crafting a district’s utility within its community?

The creators of Design Districts have taken starkly differing approaches to defining the term “design,” each crafting language and initiatives that suit the commercial goals of its developers, community board members, or government entities. Some have opted for control over creativity—borrowing from the principles of New Urbanism and making visual cohesiveness essential—while others have handed over the duty of defining design to global consulting firms.

The Design Districts considered in this research—the Miami Design District, Dubai Design District, and Douglas Design District—exist in different time zones, amongst communities that speak different languages and with varying political ideologies. What they have in common, though, are pockets dedicated to design. I was drawn to the technicalities of these districts, and the manner in which they evolve in response to their community. At its core, this research examines one overarching question: Where do Design Districts leave design?

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# EXCERPT

The Dubai (Design) District and its Government As a faint layer of desert sand drapes Al Khail Road, drivers swerve through its six lanes with an excitement that suggests they have room to play. They’re not wrong, but they are careful— as the towering Burj Khalifa grows larger in the hazy distance, drivers pull back, understanding that the closer they are to the world’s largest tower and its home in Downtown Dubai, the better they must behave.

The ten minutes it takes to arrive at the base of Burj Khalifa from that exact spot on Al Khail Road feels like a time-lapse. That exact spot, wedged between Dubai Sports City and Dubai Healthcare City, stands in opposition to its neighbors. Its starting point is bare, a sharp reminder that less than fifty years ago, Dubai was desert—no roads, no daring drivers, no Downtown Dubai and certainly no Burj Khalifa. The emirate’s story—one of a long-ruling monarchy, tremendous amounts of oil, and a level of expatriate loyalty otherwise unseen in the Middle East—has benefited from finding undeveloped places like this and swallowing them whole.1 Scouting locations like the sand dunes off of Al Khail Road is the first step in Dubai’s cluster-based business model. Operating like a Russian nesting doll, Dubai has established itself as a city of many smaller cities. With areas like Dubai Media City, Dubai Studio City, Dubai Healthcare City, and Dubai Internet City, separating industries into visa-regulated zones establishes a means of understanding the emirate’s quickly sprouting urban landscape. With each new cluster comes opportunity for the leaders of Dubai to stake claim in an industry, proving to both the emirate’s citizens and international investors that they mean business. Dubai is not a city of spontaneity.

Michela Celi understands Dubai. She believes that the emirate’s carefully planned vision is a means of showcasing its intent and devotion to something—healthcare, media, cars, sports—but she knows, especially after six years of living here, that Dubai is also a place tethered to visa regulations and licensing guidelines. Dubai, as Celi knows, must be planned in order to stay alive.

As the Director of Strategy and Development of the Dubai Design District (d3), the latest industry cluster to gain traction and news headlines, Celi understands both the logistic necessity and cultural significance of Dubai’s many business parks. 2 Operating under TECOM Investments, the Dubai-based real estate developer and member of Dubai Holding, the global investment firm owned in large part by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, d3 is born out of a need for what Celi calls “a very important sector the city was not serving properly.”3 Much of the language used when discussing Dubai’s method of urban development sounds like this—professional, careful, and planned.

Perhaps this is based in part on the emirate’s need to recalibrate their methods, shifting from an oil-based to a knowledge-based economy.

The economic crisis of 2009, in which Dubai’s development was halted and expatriates fled the emirate in hundreds, following news that the government couldn’t repay the $25 billion debt they had amassed, the leaders of Dubai were forced to re-establish themselves.4 With an expatriate population that leaves Emirati citizens outnumbered nine-to-one, regaining credibility was necessary to remain afloat. The international investors who had helped Dubai establish itself the first time around slowly trickled back in with the expansion of TECOM’s

The Miami Design District is accented by consistent branding on its streets and several buildings. Image: Mariam Aldhahi.

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ventures, all of which have managed to achieve what they had intended, to become the regional headquarters of whatever industry base they had developed. By the end of 2012—just as the idea of d3 was being toyed with behind the closed doors of TECOM’s corporate office— much of the emirate had bounced back. New initiatives had helped resuscitate the economy, weaving cultural desire with governmental requirements.

Dubai’s high population of expatriates makes immigration and visa guidelines tricky. Add to that exceptionally difficult citizenship requirements—those interested must live in the United Arab Emirates for twenty years and speak fluent Arabic before seeking Emirati citizenship—and industry clusters become legal necessity. At its most basic level, as Celi explained, Dubai’s Free Zone model is based on renting out office space.

These special economic zones, Free Zones, are developed to offer benefits to those who choose to open businesses there. With rules and regulations that differ from one zone to another, these places operate as pseudo-cities. Each Free Zone is dedicated to one industry, like d3, and only offers licenses to companies that fall into a particular category. These clusters are Dubai’s methods for organizing its immigrants and keeping track of its economy.5 By the time d3 was announced to the public in June 2013, TECOM had already seen the success of seven clusters. Like its predecessors, d3 is master-planned to operate as the go-to for one industry, leaving the job of determining how that industry is defined to the leaders of TECOM. Back in the TECOM offices not far from where they were preparing to break ground on d3, Michela Celi and her team began searching for other design districts, the ones that had propelled the industry in the first place. She

A rendering of the intended Dubai Design District in 2020.

Image: TECOM Investments.

and her colleagues set travel plans, scheduling visits to Helsinki, Milan, Miami, New York, and London to explore the characteristics of the world’s most popular districts, studying both d3’s inspiration and future competition.

Celi started noting differences between what she found and what TECOM had envisioned for themselves. “The thing is, when you look at other design districts, they’re retail hubs,” she explains, “We aren’t just focused on retail, our business model is developed to become headquarters for these companies.”6 TECOM’s entire method of creating d3, Celi admits, is backwards compared to already established communities. While most design districts are born organically, with designers and artists staking claim on an area and garnering interest from larger companies over time, Dubai is building its district to cater to top designers and attract them to d3 from day one.

Once big name designers and agencies move into Dubai, Celi explains, locally grown talent will gain exposure on an international level, convincing Arab designers to stay in Dubai rather than leave for more established cities.

TECOM needed to decide what design was going to mean in Dubai and to its citizens and Celi found herself stuck. “Basically, we realized that there’s a lot of confusion around ‘design,’ so we hired a consultancy.” Soon after handing off duties to Deloitte, the world’s largest consultancy, TECOM received their definition broken into eight segments: Interior Design, Architecture, Furniture, Lighting Design, Visual Arts, Fashion Design, Industrial Design, and Digital Design.7 The idea that Dubai was thinking big when developing d3 isn’t surprising. With twenty-one million square feet of land being developed in three phases, d3 wraps around Al Khail Road and

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The Dubai Design District aims to be the Middle East’s creative epicenter. Image: TECOM Investments.

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faces an expansive waterfront, taking up nearly three times as much space as the almost sevenmillion-square-foot Miami Design District. With eight newly defined sectors of design to target, TECOM’s leaders began reaching out to local designers who had already established their brand in the region, giving them a sneak peek of d3 in hopes of bringing them in early. Part of Deloitte’s findings suggested that TECOM gather those top designers and incorporate them into the development of d3, giving them roles as planners and collaborators rather than just leaseholders.

The establishment of the Dubai Design and Fashion Council (DDFC) in October 2014 was TECOM’s first step in gaining international credibility and support for d3. The fifteen-member council is made up of some of the industry’s top Middle Eastern designers and business leaders.

At the front of the pack is Nez Gebreel, a Libyaborn creative business consultant best known for establishing Victoria Beckham as a successful fashion designer. As CEO of DDFC, Gebreel is the voice of the council and it is her job to present d3’s intentions to the public. “We are here to help emerging, small, and even longstanding businesses that need infrastructural support and mentoring realize their potential,” Gebreel explained to Gulf News, a Dubai-based newspaper, just a few days after the council was established.8 The fifteen members make decisions and set goals for the district based on feedback from focus groups held with Dubai’s pre-existing design community.

Before the council was established, TECOM had identified ten “creative clusters” across Dubai. The clusters are where designers have already set up shop—malls, other Free Zones, areas on the outskirts of the city—and TECOM wants them all to relocate to d3. Beyond being an industry center, DDFC knows that the district

needs to be an incubator. “There is a tremendous amount of energy and ambition in our region’s creative industry,” Gebreel explains, “Yet they don’t know how to take that next step.”9 TECOM was careful in selecting the members of DDFC. They are Emirati, Lebanese, and Egyptian, among other nationalities from within the region, and they are exactly the sorts of minds that d3 is looking to nurture in the future.

Ideally, d3 will be ninety-percent complete by the start of the World Expo being hosted in Dubai in October 2020. Much of the motivation behind TECOM’s timeline, Celi is quick to explain, is meant to align the district’s development with the World Expo, which is set to create an enormous demand for jobs and office space, just as d3 is wrapping up construction.10 Also in line with the DDFC’s intent to promote local talent, twenty-five million tourists are expected in Dubai for the World Expo, providing unprecedented exposure to talent within d3.

With the overwhelming popularity of events like Art Dubai, an annual three-day exhibition of Middle Eastern, African, and South Asian art, and Design Days Dubai, its design-related counterpart, TECOM is careful not to stray from their intended image for d3, and promoting brand awareness is one of the main factors behind their initiative to host events in the district.

When Michela Celi discusses TECOM’s goals for d3, she notes that they aren’t looking to compete with Milan or Paris in a short time frame. “If you look at those cities, there are brands that have been there since the early 1990s,” she explains, “They also have established educational institutions, design factories, and markets.” Dubai is interested, however, in becoming the next Beirut, the city Celi says is widely thought to be the longstanding capital for art and design in the Middle East.11

The construction site of the Dubai Design District.

Image: TECOM Investments.

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A Douglas Design District flag hanging on Douglas Avenue.

Image: Douglas Design District, Wichita, KS.

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Though untraditional in its conception, the recent establishment of d3 still says something about art and design’s heightened prominence in Dubai, including how its leaders intend to take it forward. “Once we promote Dubai as a location for design, companies will start moving into the district,” Celi says, “It’s sort of a marketing campaign.”12

1 “Political System,” UAE Government: Political System. www. uaeinteract.com/government/political_system; “International Energy Statistics, EIA,” International Energy Statistics, EIA. www. eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/IEDIndex3.cfm; Alini Dizik, “Dubai: Desert Oasis or Mirage for Expats?” BBC website, February 17, 2014.

2 “Free Zone Business Parks,” TECOM Investments. www.tecom. ae/portfolio/business-parks.

3 Michela Celi, interview with author, October 2014.

4 Frank Kane, and Hadeel Al Sayegh, “Dubai Stands Taller than Ever Five Years on from Its Debt Crisis,” The National, November 23, 2014. www.thenational.ae/business/economy/20141122/dubaistands-taller-than-ever-five-years-on-from-its-debt-crisis.

5 Sunil Thacker Associates, “UAE Free Zone Guide,” December 2014. www.uaelawblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/fzco.pdf 6 Michela Celi, interview with author, October 2014.

7 Deloitte United States. www2.deloitte.com/us/en/services/ consulting.html.

8 Pratyush Sarup, “Decoding the Dubai Design and Fashion Council,” Gulf News, October 31, 2014. www.gulfnews.com/ life-style/beauty-fashion/decoding-the-dubai-design-andfashion-council.

9 Ibid.

10 Dana Moukhallati, “Expo 2020 Will Create Hundreds of Thousands of Jobs across the Region,” The National. April 29, 2014. www. thenational.ae/uae/tourism/expo-2020-will-create-hundreds-ofthousands-of-jobs-across-the-region.

11 Michela Celi, interview with author, October 2014.

12 Ibid.

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Alper THINKING Besen Invisible Architecture: Critical Thinking and Architectural Cognition

KEYWORDS

Alper Besen was born in Istanbul and worked there as an interior architect until 2011. With an MA in Interior Architecture from RISD, he began teaching at Urban Frame, a summer design and build program at MIT. After moving to New York, he started working at Deborah Berke Partners as an interior architect. He is interested in design cognition and architectural theory, and his current research focuses on critical thinking and its role in the architectural design process. Alper’s goal is to develop and teach experimental interior architecture studio courses.

Abstraction Architecture education Architecture jury Cognitive sciences Critical thinking Design process Design studio Desk critiques Drawing Intuition Rationality Presentation Student Thought processes

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alper.besen@gmail.com abesen.com

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ABSTRACT

Our interactions with architecture are mostly physical. Yet every artificial space that we experience is the result of an ephemeral and invisible cognitive journey: architects create, experiment, evaluate, judge, reason, and sacrifice ideas.

Architectural pedagogy is swarming with terminology that addresses cognitive processes. Words like analysis, synthesis, and critical thinking are not hard to come by in the curricula and syllabi of prominent architectural schools, even the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture underlines the importance of “Critical Thinking� in architectural education in its literature.

However, this term usually remains undefined and gets conflated with concepts such as criticism, problem solving, and critical theory. This situation causes confusion, blocks opportunities for greater understanding and leads to jargon that shadows the learning process.

This research examines the ways in which critical thinking is addressed and/or neglected in architectural education.

The research encompasses three major East Coast American architecture departments: Pratt Institute, Parsons The New School for Design, and Columbia University. Each case study examines contemporary and archived curricula, syllabi, and promotional materials in conjunction with faculty and student interviews. Cognitive psychology and philosophy papers on critical thinking and design cognition are juxtaposed with methodologies of design theorists such as Horst Rittel and Donald Schon to analyze the existing landscape in architecture departments. The thesis argues that architectural education would benefit from more in-school collaborations with psychiatrists, philosophers, and education theorists.

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EXCERPT

Critical Thinking and The Architectural Design Process Abstract concepts such as critical thinking, problem solving, rational thought, and reasoning have the tendency to confuse if they are not adequately explained. According to educational theorist Larry Cuban, how to properly define thinking skills is problematic both for scientists and practitioners. He compares the situation to a “conceptual swamp�.1 Literature on critical thinking can be tracked back to three main root sources, each with distinct characteristics: philosophy, psychology and education. The philosophical approach focuses on a hypothetical and ideal critical thinker and preoccupies itself with the possibility of best outcomes, thus limiting how it can be defined in reality. The cognitive psychology branch focuses on how people actually think in real life conditions. The educational approach relies on practical experiences and observations of student learning, but is limited in its vague methodology.2 It is important to note here that both philosophy and cognitive psychology are considered to be branches of cognitive sciences.3 The interdisciplinary nature of cognitive science majors in colleges allows them to approach elements of cognition in a holistic manner. The Cognitive Science Program at Cornell University fosters interdisciplinary approaches. Could it be assumed, then, that critical thinking would be best understood with a broader perspective, perhaps through the lens of cognitive sciences and education? Certainly it is necessary to develop an understanding of critical thinking and to look for commonality between the numerous definitions.

Psychology, philosophy, and educational theory provide diverse definitions for critical

Architecture studio jury at Columbia University. Image: Columbia University.

thinking; most of them include reasoning, logic, judgment, and meta-cognition in their descriptions.4 A better understanding of judgment and meta-cognition will help to understand the role of critical thinking in architecture in a more meaningful way.

Judgment does not always have to be authoritative or uncompromising. For example, when an architecture student designs a building, the model she makes is an embodiment of her judgments. The scale, material, form, and other aspects of the design are all decisions that are ideally based on careful thought. This does not mean that those decisions are cast in iron or stiff-necked, but rather inevitable components of the design process.

Meta-cognition is another concept that requires clarification. This refers to our knowledge of what we know (or, what we know about what we know), and how we use this knowledge to direct further learning activities.5 As a hypothetical example, imagine a student who has completed a critique. She may begin to contemplate what was gained from the comments of the jury members or she might start to evaluate her presentation methods. She may think about how her thought process would have differed if she had decided to model the building rather than draw a section. All of these reflective thought processes focus on the way the student thinks and learns and are examples of meta-cognition.

One of the most commonly referenced definitions for critical thinking comes from American philosopher John Dewey. His 1933 book How We Think is considered to be one of the hallmarks of the concept. Dewey actually used the term reflective thinking and described it as consequential reasoning. This means that ideas in a critical thought process are linked in a consequential manner and follow each other

Architecture studio jury at Columbia University. Image: Columbia University.

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Architecture studio spaces at Columbia University, 2015. Image: Alper Besen.

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in a rational way rather than a random order.6 This research uses the terms reflective thinking and critical thinking synonymously.

The former president of the American Psychological Association, Diane F. Halpern, explains her understanding of critical thinking: Critical thinking is the use of those cognitive skills or strategies that increase the probability of a desirable outcome. It is used to describe thinking that is purposeful, reasoned, and goal directed—the kind of thinking involved in solving problems, formulating inferences, calculating likelihoods, and making decisions, when the thinker is using skills that are thoughtful and effective for the particular context and type of thinking task. Critical thinking is more than merely thinking about your own thinking or making judgments and solving problems—it is effortful and consciously controlled. Critical thinking uses evidence and reasons and strives to overcome individual biases.7

Knowledge + Thinking Skills + Attitude = Critical Thinking

This equation demonstrates that in order to engage in critical thinking one needs to have both the fundamental knowledge about the subject of inquiry (based on the discipline) as well as the necessary thinking skills as discussed earlier (judgment, meta-thinking, consequential reasoning), and lastly to have the motivation and determination to honestly pursue critical thought.

The emphasis on a desired outcome in Halpern’s definition is extremely relevant for architectural education. Architects are responsible for the fulfillment of programmatic and social needs. They might redefine these needs or approach them in genuine ways during the design process, but regardless of the amount of creativity or experimentation they implement, there is always a desired outcome.

Another important aspect of Halpern’s definition is that it distinguishes critical thinking from meta-thinking, judgment-making, and problem-solving. These skills are components of reflective thought and critical thinking consciously orchestrates them.

Professor of Education D. H. Russel states that a complete description of critical thinking

Architectural sketch. Image: Biecher Architectes.

would consist of the following factors: knowledge of the field of inquiry, attitudes of questioning, temporarily suspending judgment for the sake of unbiased questioning, and the application of the methods of logical analysis, which leads to acting on the basis of analysis.8 Diane F. Halpern summarizes professor David Russel’s approach with an equation that provides a succinct structure for studying this topic:

1 L arry Cuban, “Policy and Research Dilemmas in the Teaching of Reasoning: Unplanned Designs,” Review of Educational Research 54, no. 4 (Winter 1984), 676. In Arthur Lewis and David Smith, “Defining Higher Order Thinking,” Theory Into Practice 32, no. 3 (Summer 1993), 131.

2 Emily R. Lai, Critical Thinking: A Literature Review (Pearson, June 2011), 5–9. http://images.pearsonassessments.com/images/ tmrs/CriticalThinkingReviewFINAL.pdf.

3 “Cognitive Science Graduate Minor Information,” Cornell University Cognitive Science Program. http://cogsci.cornell. edu/?page_id=11.

4 Diane F. Halpern, Thought and Knowledge: An Introduction to Critical Thinking, 5th ed. (Oxford: Psychology Press, Taylor and Francis Group, 2014), 628.

5 Diane F. Halpern, Thought and Knowledge: An Introduction to Critical Thinking, 5th ed. (Oxford: Psychology Press, Taylor and Francis Group, 2014), 1039.

6 Michael Eng and Dan Buscescu, Looking Beyond Structure: Critical Thinking for Designers and Architects (New York: Fairchild Books, 2009), 2.

7 Diane F. Halpern, Thought and Knowledge: An Introduction to Critical Thinking, 5th ed. (Oxford: Psychology Press, Taylor and Francis Group, 2014), 636.

8 D. H. Russel, “Critical Thinking in Childhood and Youth,” The School, no. 31 (May 1943), 764. In Edward D’Angelo, The Teaching of Critical Thinking, Philosophical Currents, v. 1 (Amsterdam: B. R. Grüner N.V, 1971), 5.

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Architectural sketches. Image: Jeremy Erdreich.

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THINKING Brittany Dickinson Fashion Vice: Preparing Design Students to Reform the Industry

KEYWORDS

Brittany Dickinson holds a BS in Fashion Design from the University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Architecture, Art & Planning.

Before coming to SVA, she worked as a clothing designer at J.Crew for five years. Her research focuses on the ways in which fashion design education addresses social and environmental issues, and she is particularly interested in the ambiguity and complexity of the word “sustainability.” Brittany sees her work at SVA as the starting point in a lifelong mission to educate future generations of ethical designers.

Aesthetics Ambiguity Choice Compartmentalization Ethics Fashion Greenwashing Language Mindset Patience Responsibility Supererogatory Student Sustainability

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brittanymdickinson@gmail.com @brittanyinbrief

§ ABSTRACT

The fashion industry is riddled with problems like poor labor conditions, wasteful practices, and depletion of natural resources. Creative solutions are needed from designers who are skilled in understanding the social and environmental landscape of the industry, yet few have been trained in the ways in which they can conduct better practices.

To what extent are fashion design schools addressing these issues and preparing students with the tools they need to devise sustainable solutions? Sustainability is often treated as an add-on, rather than an intrinsic element, in a school’s curriculum. This mode of compartmentalization is reflected in the industry where sustainable design appears to be separated from “regular” design. There is also a tension between training students for the current demands of the industry and preparing them for jobs that have not yet been formed. This research explores the ethical responsibility of education to help build a better future, with a focus on the pedagogical approaches of the most influential undergraduate fashion design programs in the world.

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§ EXCERPT

Sustainability is not a fixed concept. It is an ongoing reorientation of the ways in which we engage with the world. There is no clear path to becoming a sustainable designer. Because of this, and the fact that sustainability is not yet a mandate in the industry, there is no singular, established approach to addressing this in the classroom.

Sustainability is commonly treated as an add-on subject sequestered from core fashion design classes. This mirrors the line of demarcation in the industry that separates sustainable fashion from the rest of fashion. Some educational institutions might add a single class in order to tick the sustainability box, which is not unlike the business approach of creating an organic cotton T-shirt to convey a message to consumers on the supposed ethical values of a company.

Sustainability-focused electives, projects, or competitions are common strategies in academia.

The Local Wisdom project, launched in 2009 by Kate Fletcher, professor of Sustainability, Design, Fashion at the London College of Fashion, partners with international design schools to explore different uses for clothing in an effort for students to create sustainable design processes.

Other opportunities include the EcoChic Design Award, a competition established in 2011 which challenges students to create a collection with minimal textile waste, and Habit(AT), a research project developed in 2013 by the Centre for Sustainable Fashion at the London College of Fashion that explores how fashion affects our habits of living in the city.

It does not seem to be enough, however, for a student to take a single class on sustainability in order to understand or incorporate it throughout their work.1 Special projects and design competitions have the potential

to deeply impact a student’s awareness and engagement in sustainability, especially if creative skills are put to use. Further, these strategies are favorable from an academic standpoint in that they do not uproot curricular structure.

But in compartmentalizing these activities, it can reinforce the perception that sustainability is relegated to a select few individuals who are free to choose to act responsibly.2 If sustainability is treated as an isolated subject outside the ongoing conversation in school, it is easy for students to fall back onto common, unsustainable ways of designing after completing the project or course.3 When people watch a video revealing an issue in the industry, for example, they may start adopting more sustainable consumption methods, yet without continued exposure to those issues, they often do not continue on this track.4 For sustainability literacy to truly take hold, it must be integrated, incrementally, into the shaping of a design student’s mind. Skill sets are then shaped—an idea which reflects William James’s theory on building knowledge—James famously said in his 1907 lectures on pragmatism that, “we keep unaltered as much of our old knowledge, as many of our old prejudices and beliefs, as we can. We patch and tinker more than we renew.”5 James is essentially saying that we are slow to adopt new knowledge, and even slower to transform that knowledge into new truths. Because it can be so difficult to introduce new ideas, it is more effective to blend the new with the old, such as weaving ethical issues and tools into the traditional requirements of fashion design education. A broad scope of subject matter pertaining to sustainability would help to shape students’ thinking, preferably early on in design school when they are able to absorb more information.6

Upcycling project from second-year students at Central Saint Martins in collaboration with LVMH, 2015. Image: 1Granary.

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A look from a collaborative project between Nike and London College of Fashion’s Centre for Sustainable Fashion. Image: The Centre for Sustainable Fashion.

§

My research suggests that there are a greater number of students entering college with an interest in sustainability, but there are still many who do not think to seek it out on their own. And for students who really do care about the ecological impacts of design, it can be overwhelming to bear the responsibility of choosing what is important.7 Should they take a survey on ethics or a workshop on upcycling? What does it take to become a sustainable designer?

As students progress in their studies, it becomes increasingly difficult and overwhelming to absorb new information, especially in the final year when they are in the midst of working on their collections and are focused on getting jobs. A common theme among the young designers interviewed as part of this research is that many struggle to keep up with their required courses in school. This makes it difficult or nearly impossible to devote time to electives on specialty topics, especially those that will not impact the kind of jobs they get upon graduation. Further, the classes that provide a rich context for sustainability are often categorized in the humanities and sciences which, when taught separately, compete with studio classes that are typically prioritized by the students because they seem more relevant to fashion design.8 How can sustainability transition from an isolated subject to one that is part of the ethos of design thinking? To quote moral philosopher Peter Singer, “The issue here is: Where should we draw the line between good conduct that is required and conduct that is good although not required, so as to get the best possible result?”9 In other words, how can sustainability go from an optional and supererogatory act to an inherent part of the design process?

1 N oël Palomo-Lovinski and Kim Hahn, “Fashion Design Industry Impressions of Current Sustainable Practices,” Fashion Practice: The Journal of Design, Creative Process & the Fashion Industry 6, no. 1 (2014), 100.

2 Cosette Armstrong and Melody LeHew, “Barriers and Mechanisms for the Integration of Sustainability in Textile and Apparel Education: Stories from the Front Line,” Fashion Practice: The Journal of Design, Creative Process & the Fashion Industry 6, no. 1 (2014), 78.

3 Sarah Ditty and Lisa Schneider, “8 Ways to Study More Sustainably,” Ethical Fashion Forum, May 1, 2014. http://source.ethicalfashionforum.com/ article/8-ways-to-study-more-sustainably.

4 Fatma Baytar and Susan P. Ashdown, “Using Video As a Storytelling Medium to Influence Textile and Clothing Students’ Environmental Knowledge and Attitudes,” International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education 7, no. 1 (2014), 39.

5 William James, Pragmatism. (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1907), 168.

6 Tara St James, interview with author, December 16, 2014.

7 Lucy Collins, interview with author, February 17, 2015.

8 Lynda Grose, “Fashion Design Education for Sustainability Practice: Reflection on Undergraduate Level Teaching,” in Sustainability in Fashion and Textiles: Values, Design, Production and Consumption, ed. Miguel Angel Gardetti and Ana Laura Torres (Sheffield: Greenleaf Publishing, 2013), 140.

9 Peter Singer, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 1, no. 3 (1972), 237.

Participants engage in zero-waste design at the Waste Workshop, 2011. Image: Jim Norrena, California College of the Arts.

A close-up of a garment from the Local Wisdom Project, 2012.

Image: Fiona Bailey, The Centre for Sustainable Fashion at London College of Fashion.

Parsons The New School for Design hosted a Kering Talk on sustainable fashion, 2015. Image: Kering.

19

Âś

LaurenTHINKING Palmer

Paper, Pixel, Performance: Bringing Publishing to Life

KEYWORDS

Lauren Palmer is a writer, designer, and researcher interested in art, design, literature, and theory. She has immersed herself in contemporary arts publishing through work and internships with Paper Monument, Printed Matter, Inc., Architectural Record, Princeton Architectural Press, and ARTBOOK | D.A.P. Lauren has a BA in Biochemistry from The City University of New York and an MA in Textile Design from the Chelsea College of Art, where her research in sustainable fibers placed her on the shortlist for the University of the Arts London Fashioning the Future Awards. She won an SVA Alumni Scholarship Award in 2015.

Audience Conversation Distribution Editorship Interdisciplinary Live Magazine Publication Performance Periodical Platform Recital Social Stage

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lauren.f.palmer@gmail.com @llaurenpalmerr

¶ ABSTRACT

Artists’ magazines have traditionally been a place for experimentation in thought and form. The printed page allowed for ease of circulation and archiving; artists could also reach a larger audience through the reproduction and distribution of magazines. With the advent of the Internet and online publishing, the magazine has found new ways to reach its intended audience, furthering experimentation with form via code.

There has also been a movement toward the experiential, or the performative, in publishing. Magazines are marketing “live” issues or portions of an issue—either recording the content or forgoing the archival impulse altogether—thus challenging the idea of what a magazine is and could be.

The relationship between performance and publishing can be traced back to the avant-garde artist movement, Dada, operating throughout Europe during and after World War I. The United States saw a resurgence in this type of practice during the 1960s and 1970s, when New York was a hotbed of Happenings in the Downtown arts scene and artists’ publications reflected the conceptual, collaborative, and, at times, casual performances.

Today, Triple Canopy and Pop-Up Magazine continue the tradition of combining publishing and performance in disparate ways. Triple Canopy incorporates live events into its digital publication through recording in a variety of methods, while Pop-Up is a completely ephemeral, one-night-only live magazine—it is not recorded at all. Missing the event means missing an entire issue.

This research explores the ways in which live events heighten the social aspect of publishing by highlighting the relationship between a magazine and its readership, and maintain the publication as a vehicle for social exchange in the age of new media.

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¶ EXCERPT

What Was the Magazine?

A magazine is a periodical, which is also a publication. These terms are rather synonymous and may be used interchangeably, though the tendency to substitute one term for the other illustrates what historian Margaret Beetham suggests as a difficulty in properly defining what a periodical is. She acknowledges that the trouble exists “in part because the periodical is a mixed genre.”1 In her view, a periodical is “a catch-all term” used to describe newspapers, journals, reviews, and magazines.2 To clarify, a magazine is a type of periodical; the magazine is a species under the genus periodical. Both terms can be publications—created for sale to a targeted readership—but not all magazines (or periodicals) are meant to be sold. Distribution of content takes a myriad of forms, from the zine that is passed out at a concert to the printed glossy found on newsstands each month.

Traditionally, magazines were vessels for text and images, printed on paper, with pages bound for dispersal. Derived from the Arabic word makhazin, the magazine acts as a storage facility for content, containing text and often images on a variety of subjects.3 Though magazines may have an overarching theme, issues are aggregates and display a diverse range of ideas.4 Magazines have multiple contributors, each with a distinct voice, writing style, and point of view, each claiming authority for different articles (the proliferation of the author, to counter Roland Barthes’s death-of-the-author argument).5 The magazine is a space for varied and distinct forms of writing or image making: it is interdisciplinary by design.

The relationship to time is a marked characteristic of this type of publication. Readers look to periodicals for content that is relevant to their lives in the present—reportage, or critical

Fluxus Collective, Flux Year Box 2 (“A” Copy), 1968.

Image: Conceptual Art.

reflection, on matters of current cultural importance. Regardless of subject matter, magazines are adept at capturing a particular moment in time. “To publish a magazine is to enter into a heightened relationship with the present moment. Unlike books, which are intended to last for future generations, magazines are decidedly impermanent,” writes art historian Gwen Allen. “Their transience is embodied by their un-precious formats, flimsy covers, and inexpensive paper stock, and it is suggested by their seriality, which presumes that each issue will soon be rendered obsolete by the next.”6 What Can an Art Magazine Be? In the case of a magazine where the mode of publication is performance, the ways in which one might archive the issue could be problematic (given the transitory nature of performance); new ways of thinking about how to record the material and how to archive it are necessary. When a magazine is published online or made “live,” the magazine has undergone a dematerialization from its printed form and no longer exists on paper.

During the 1960s and 1970s magazines became an important new site of artistic practice, functioning as an alternative exhibition space for the dematerialized practices of conceptual art. […] Conceptual art depended upon the magazine as a new site of display, which allowed it to be experienced by a broader public than the handful of people actually present to witness a temporary object, idea, or act.7

The idea of text as performance is similar to art writer and critic Lucy Lippard’s opinion of conceptual art. She writes of this dematerialization

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Aspen, no. 5+6, Fall 1967. Image: Artists’ Magazines: An Alternative Space for Art.

¶

happening along two separate pathways: “art as idea and art as action. In the first case, matter is denied, as sensation has been converted into concept; in the second case, matter has been transformed into energy and time-motion.”8 This dematerialization from print requires that live magazines form a new mode of distribution, along with methods of archiving content.

Writer and editor Orit Gat’s essay “What Can an Art Magazine Be?” explores the idea of the magazine as a possible “hybrid curatorial and editorial practice.”9 Gat’s hypothesis is that an art magazine can be a platform for discussions in a way that exhibitions can’t be: because it allows writers and artists a space for reflection rather than presentation, but also because its serialized nature enables conversations that develop over time and for a reassessment or reaction to previous issues, and lastly, since a printed magazine does not have a fixed duration, unlike an exhibition.10

Gat appears to agree with MoMA library bibliographer David Senior’s assessment that the “central proposition of artists’ publications is that they are a productive space for experimentation.”11 Thus gallery space can exist as either in the form of a two-dimensional page or as a familiar three-dimensional cube: the shape the space takes is less important than the successful transmittal of ideas. These magazines were conceived as new media spaces that introduced and circulated ideas and images through the direct interventions of the participants. This genre can be considered alongside the active alternative space movement that began to flourish in the 1960s and 1970s, where artist-run exhibition and performance spaces were popping up across the globe. “The artists’ publishing

Pop-Up Magazine Los Angeles program (interior), November 19, 2014.

Image: Pop-Up Magazine.

movement was part of this phenomenon, and in fact, interwoven, as many of these independent project spaces also published and kept archives and reading rooms.”12 Gat explains, “in a comparable way to the study of art magazines as a way to further our understanding of artistic practice, we should be looking at publishing as a curatorial medium. This, in turn, would lead us to question what an audience or public is, and what it could be.”13 Gwen Allen explains how the social situation in the 1960s and 1970s made the magazine a valid choice for artists as “the everyday, throwaway form of the magazine mirrored art’s heightened sense of its own contingency.”14 The magazine is tethered to where and when it was created.

Inexpensive and accessible, the magazine was an ideal expressive vehicle for art that was more concerned with concept, process, and performance than with final marketable form. Indeed, the ephemerality of the magazine was central to its radical possibilities as an alternative form of distribution that might replace the privileged space of the museum with a more direct and democratic experience.15

It is this sense of the democratic inherent in periodical publishing that allows for the possibility of reception by a large audience; through the form of a magazine, readers have greater access to artwork that may not be present in established art galleries and institutions.

Performance as Publishing as Event In preliterate societies, storytelling was a mixture of spoken words and gestures. A strong performative element was needed to communicate a story, as speech was reinforced by

Performance as Publishing, NY Art Book Fair, September 25, 2014.

Image: Performance as Publishing.

23

¶

gesture. The repetition of sounds with somatic movements aided memorization and subsequent retellings. Before literacy, there was a kind of oral publishing as stories were performed over and over again to different audiences. Subtle changes to the narrative would occur naturally. Oral culture is dynamic and fluid, as is the nature of performance, across the more static realm of literacy.

To perform is to do—it is an active gesture.

A performance requires reception by an audience. Both the actor and audience require the presence of the other. A performance is a body in space motioning through that space in a non-replicable path. “Performance honors the idea that a limited number of people in a specific time/space frame can have an experience of value which leaves no visible trace afterward.”16 Performances, are social by their nature; the performer and her audience work together to produce a unique experience. The French playwright Antonin Artaud described the live event, or an ephemeral artwork as that which can “never be made the same way twice.”17 Because this mode of art making leaves no record of its own (the nature of performance lies in its relationship to time, defined by its start and end points), methods of archiving are often undertaken by other methods of art-making such as photography and film. Yet a photograph or film can never truly capture the essence of a performance, only a representation of it, and this is where archiving becomes problematic— there is no pure way to capture a performance, except through experience. Social theorist Brian Massumi writes in Semblance and Event: Activist Philosophy and the Occurrent Arts that, “every event is singular. It has an arc that carries it through its phases to a culmination all its

Hugo Ball reciting “Karawane” at the Cabaret Voltaire, 1916.

Image: Dada and Surrealist Performance.

own: a dynamic unity no other event can have in just this way.”18 Every event is distinctive, unable to be replicated exactly ever again.

In the case of a live magazine, the performance of an issue will always be unique, in contrast to a printed issue, where the object is often replicated in the image of the master document.

Nicole Bachmann and Ruth Beale are founding members of the UK-based artist collective Performance as Publishing. Their practices are rooted in the performance of texts, which they define as “publishing.” Every work of performance art is carefully recorded, either by film, photography, or sound—usually a combination of all three methods—and uploaded on their website to archive the work, but also as “an act of making it public.” It is important to the artists that their work is documented properly, and that it is accessible by a wide audience, to further conversations around each member’s individual practices. They choose to perform their texts, instead of purely printing them, because they feel performance, or the vocalization of the texts, is a more “responsive” medium. They are interested in the relationship between thought and speech and how an audience responds to the delivery of the content.19

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¶

1 Margaret Beetham, “Open and Closed: the Periodical as a Publishing Genre,” Victorian Periodicals Review, Fall 1989, 97.

2 Ibid., 96.

3 Clive Phillpot, “Artists as Magazinists,” in Numbers: Serial Publications By Artists Since 1955, Philip E. Aarons and Andrew Roth, eds. (Zurich: PPP Editions/JRP Ringier Kunstverlag, 2009), 177.

4 Ibid.

5 Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author,” in Participation, Claire Bishop, ed. (London: Whitechapel, 2006), 41–45.

6 Gwen Allen, Artists’ Magazines: An Alternative Space for Art, (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2011), 1.

7 Ibid.

8 Lucy Lippard and John Chandler, “The Dematerialization of Art,” Art International, Vol. XII, No. 2 (February 1968). In Changing: Essays in Art Criticism (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1971), 255.

9 Orit Gat, “What Can An Art Magazine Be?” The White Review, Issue 10 (2014). http://www.thewhitereview.org/features/ what-can-an-art-magazine-be/ 10 Ibid.

11 David Senior, “Page as alternative space redux: artists’ magazines in the 21st century,” Art Libraries Journal, Vol.38, No.3 (2013), 10.

12 Ibid.

13 Orit Gat, “What Can An Art Magazine Be?” The White Review, Issue 10 (2014). http://www.thewhitereview.org/features/ what-can-an-art-magazine-be/ 14 Gwen Allen, Artists’ Magazines: An Alternative Space for Art (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2011), 1.

15 Ibid.

16 Peggy Phelan, Unmasked: The Politics of Performance (London: Routledge, 1993), 149.

17 Amelia Jones, Perform, Repeat, Record (Bristol: Intellect Ltd, 2012), 11.

18 Brian Massumi, Semblance and Event: Activist Philosophy and the Occurrent Arts (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2013), 3.

19 Ruth Beale and Nicole Bachmann, interview with author, September 27, 2014.

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THINKING Lisa Silbermayr

“Public” “Affordable” “Units” in the “Projects:” The Role of Rhetoric in Influencing the Politics and Design of New York Public Housing KEYWORDS

Lisa Silbermayr is an architect and designer from Vienna, Austria. She received her MS in Architecture from Vienna University of Technology, where she focused on the influence and potential of computation in contemporary urban design. For the past twelve years she has worked for the Group for Appropriate Technology (GrAT) and on the wooden highrise research project 8+, both of which are concerned with environmentally friendly building solutions. Parallel to her work in architecture and design, she is involved in the independent biannual art magazine wtf! magazin as well as Salon Karton, an independent, guerilla-like cardboard-furnitecture project.

Affordable housing Architecture Public housing Home Language Neighborhood community New York City NYCHA Obligations Projects Public-private partnerships Rhetoric Units

26

lisasilbermayr@gmail.com

↓ ABSTRACT

This research examines the rhetorical discourse on public housing in New York City today, as it is variously framed by the media, the federal and local agencies, and the public housing residents themselves. In addition to providing a concise summary of the current debate, the research looks at how public housing is represented in the mainstream media and gives an overview of affordability metrics, genealogy, criticisms, and alternatives. Assuming that architecture works in similar ways to language—that is, unconsciously shaping the way we act—it looks at behavioral phenomena specific to public housing in New York City.

This research also portrays the communicative challenges of designing within the bureaucracy of public housing, and gives a speculative outlook on its future. This investigation is inspired by the broader question: Who constructs what? That is, does the built environment construct its citizens, or does politics construct them? Or, is it actually the public discussion that constructs design, politics, and citizens?

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↓ EXCERPT

The Projects and The Communicative Challenge of Designing for the Community What will the future bring for New York City’s public housing? One can only speculate at this moment in time. However, considering that the New York City Housing Authority developments allow for further densification, that New York City is growing, and that NYCHA will need to fortify public-private partnerships to maintain the building stock, it is very likely that proposals to further develop and build on “NYCHA land” will be implemented within the following years.

The generic architectural language characteristic of NYCHA developments might lead one to the conclusion that there has been little to no attention paid to design innovation in the city’s public housing. Sara Caples, principal of Caples Jefferson Architects, has experience working in NYCHA’s bureaucratic environment, and notes that it poses exceptional design and communication challenges. Nevertheless, Caples sees opportunities for sustainable design in public contexts, and cities that in the last fifteen to twenty years, a few significant innovative designs have taken physical shape within NYCHA developments.

Caples describes the works for some of her firm’s private clients as “almost like stage sets in their life span—they can be gone in five years, and they are likely gone in twenty years.” The firm’s works for public and non-profit clients, on the other hand, have a much longer lifespan.

The spaces “…need to be durable and flexible in terms of the non-profit clients changing how they are operating. We make buildings that the community is going to have way past our lifetime, so the buildings have to be loved by the community in their own right. This one community center is going to be there forever and they are not going to get another chance in getting it built,” Caples explains.1

Architectural design is first and foremost a task of finding a consensus: a design that works for many different people, activities, and budgetary considerations. “Trying to figure out a durable set of spaces that could engage the public imagination a hundred years from now, or even two hundred,” as Caples described their design guidelines, sounds like the ultimate consensual challenge.2 What conclusions can be derived by the preceding analysis? First, there is little information available on how the city’s government, or Mayor de Blasio for that matter, intends to proceed with public housing. It is likely that the city will pursue plans to build new residential buildings, including a percentage of “affordable,” subsidized, units. But, as Tyree Stanback, vice chair of the Brooklyn West Resident Association, said: “Instead of getting these partnerships and these P3s to come in and build right next to what’s falling down, maybe we should get them to come in and fix what’s falling down.”3 In any of these cases design can play an important role in the evolution of public housing. Architecture can influence people’s behavior. In the case of the stairwells of the housing projects, the situation needs to be improved before one can even think of getting rid of the image of public housing being “crime ridden.”

Politics will decide how existing infrastructure will be refurbished, such as whether there will be new development within “NYCHA land” and how current public housing residents will be integrated in future developments. Before a political decision is made, questions will hopefully be asked in a public, rhetorical debate.

An outcome in favor of the current residents would have to overcome the myth of the American dream of homeownership as

A meeting room in the Marcus Garvey Houses Community Center, Brooklyn, New York. Image: Caples Jefferson Architects.

Skylight Study, Marcus Garvey Houses Community Center, Brooklyn, New York. Image: Caples Jefferson Architects.

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↓

promoted by the mainstream media. Mayor de Blasio’s goal to repair the relationship with current public housing residents presents a communication challenge as well.

Tyree refers to the recent history of New York City, the old history of NYCHA, and the new history of NYCHA and its public-private partnerships as the “Tale of Three New York Cities.” This rhetoric could be used in a way that is beneficial to public housing residents by enabling the mayor to achieve his goal of building new affordable housing. One could emphasize the success of public housing, learn from its failures, and correct mistakes in the process of urban renewal. Renewal is an opportunity for design innovation and, in the case of public housing in New York City, it’s not too late for innovation in the public housing infrastructure.

Sarah Watson, deputy director of the Citizen Housing and Planning Council of New York City, shared her speculative outlook on how the future of NYCHA would ideally look: Money aside, the current infrastructure would need to be repaired before any new buildings could be added to the developments.

NYCHA would have to consult with communities more. It would then be the role of the government to be able to see the big picture and “make uncomfortable decisions.”4 NYCHA would also need to be integrated in community planning processes in different neighborhoods.

Consequently community boards would need to be restructured, and members challenged to decide where in neighborhoods NYCHA refurbishments could be implemented. This means that boards would need well-informed and skilled neighborhood managers.

What Watson is describing is a complete overhaul of the NYCHA management, the community board system, and even the New York

zoning law. Would it be possible to pilot such a framework?5 How the “Tale of Three New York Cities” will end remains an open question.

What is certain is that this is a defining moment for public housing in New York City, and the political decision-makers will be the ones deciding which rhetoric will write our ongoing design history.

1 S ara Caples, principal, Caples Jefferson Architects, interview with author, March 2015.

2 Ibid.

3 Tyree Stanback, vice chair of the Brooklyn West Resident Association, at the Town Hall meeting on the amendment to the FY2015 Annual Plan, Brooklyn, hosted by NYCHA, March 9, 2015.

4 Sarah Watson, Deputy Director of the Citizen Housing and Planning Council New York City, interview with author, March 2015.

5 Ibid.

The amount of open space for development in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Image: The University of Michigan MUD Studio.

29

NYCHA developments in New York, excluding Staten Island.

Image: Nychapedia, 2014.

*◊ †

The address of the SpaceX Headquarters is One, Rocket Road. But, you have to park down the street at Starbucks.

If much of the historic fabric has to be removed in the preservation of a modern dwelling, what is it we are actually preserving? The actual physical structure or an idea based on an image?

“A cheap casket or a top end design— you won’t get to heaven any faster.

In the end the selection is all about what is meaningful to the family and what allows them to get on with their lives in peace,” says Michael Beardsley, vice-president of Sales and Marketing Emeritus, for Thacker Caskets, Inc.

30

☞ ‡

“You see retail environments that have more adventurous displays than what you would see in a museum,” Kumar Atre, a designer at Diller Scofidio + Renfro told me. “They can actually make more curatorial hypotheses and intellectual forays [than museums.]”

When I talked to Jerry Helling, president of anti-design piracy organization Be Original Americas, he told me: “There are more small companies [today] that can import and sell knockoffs without the major investment of inventory and retail space. Also, the makers of knockoffs have easier access in locating potential sellers of copies.

Additionally photographs and drawings on the web have allowed knockoff producers to instantly copy items […].

It is all a perfect storm that supports the ease of copying.”

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THINGS Molly Butcher

*

Occupy Mars: Manned Missions to Mars and the Material Culture of the Contemporary Space Industry KEYWORDS

Molly Butcher holds a BA in Art Practice from Stanford University, and has spent the past five years working in art and design, starting an independent design research consultancy in 2014. Her personal research centers on how Mars is designed for the public imagination.

She has spoken on the topic at “Color/Forms: The Twenty-Fourth Annual Parsons/Cooper Hewitt Graduate Student Symposium on the Decorative Arts and Design� in April of 2015.

Commercial space Domestic Dystopia Globalization Manifest destiny Mars Merchandise Public-private partnerships Realism Space colonies Terraform Utopia Vernacular Westward expansion

32

amollybutcher@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

India, China, and the United States, as well as a handful of private companies, are all working to put humans on Mars.

The space industry is undergoing a renaissance: private companies are entering the space arena, innovating, and driving down historically astronomical costs. This means that getting to Mars may be relatively affordable within this century.

Today, Mars is portrayed as a destination and potential home for humanity. Figments of science fiction—from images of Martian settlements to images of a green, habitable Mars— are entering mainstream media. How does the space industry function in a post-utopian, post-colonial world?

My research mines the material culture of the space industry, from merchandise to twitter accounts, from wall clocks to spaceship interiors, working to understand how Mars is being portrayed, and what that says about society today. The branding, designed objects, and interiors all seek to render Mars banal and everyday in the public imagination, and in doing so reveal colonialist and techno-utopian motivations. Part of the effort of this work is to locate the historical influence of the contemporary space industry. Advertisements from the Cold War race to the moon, NASA studies from the 1970s, and the first maps of Mars from the 1890s are examined.

In what ways and to what extent is Mars entering public awareness? How are governments and companies discussing their missions to Mars and normalizing Mars in the public imagination? Why are colonialist impulses taboo on earth, but accepted in outer space?

* 33

EXCERPT

Mars as Merchandise “The Occupy Mars Wall Clock is available for purchase in increments of 1,” reads the SpaceX webshop entry on their analog “Occupy Mars” wall clock. “Be the first to review this item.” I was trying to buy this clock, stuck in the twilight zone of adding it to my cart, only to have it disappear every time I tried to check out.

There were no reviews that day in November 2014 and there are still no reviews today. For a company that has built a reputation on flawless execution and technological sophistication not much effort has gone into this webpage.

A striped gray background provides a somber shopping experience. Product descriptions define increments of purchase rather than describing the objects.

The “Occupy Mars” clock hovers, glossy, on this gray wallpaper. Highlights dance around a black frame that encircles the surface of Mars printed on the clock face. This view of Mars features the Valle Mariners, the largest canyon on Mars. The sun illuminates the upper left of the planet (or clock), leaving the bottom right in an ominous shadow.

Günther Anders, a German philosopher, argues that one response to the expansion of the human experience into the vastness of space was to bring space back to the scale of the human body. The television, the portal to the universe in the 1960s, would be meticulously placed in the living room. “To the right the record rack, to the left the house bar, and in the center the universe hovers as a third piece of furnishing.”1 The SpaceX wall clock, a new piece of furnishing, brings Mars into the office, to be positioned to the left of the water cooler.

Space travel has always been closely linked to merchandising. The 1960s space race “married marketing and war,” and even the first space

exploration—high-altitude balloon experiments in France in the late 1790s—led to a market for balloon “hairdos, wallpaper, bedwarmers, barometers and chamber pots.”2 These fashionable items existed as secular relics, fetishized for having transcended Earth’s gravity. These objects allow consumers to connect to the actual event.

Contemporary space merchandise and social media are leaving behind the paper catalogues of the 1980s with pocket protectors and rocket pens and entering a model where individuals engage with and espouse their own views of space exploration through their purchases and engagement with online communities. Consumers can buy the organic jersey cotton T-shirt as a way to get a taste of the corporate tech start-up culture, not space travel per se. Contemporary merchandise effectively normalizes space.

When I was in elementary school in the 1990s, Astronaut Ice Cream, originally developed by the Whirlpool Corporation under contract with NASA, was the space merchandise of choice. Astronaut Ice Cream brought the eater closer to being an astronaut as did other space-related merchandise products, like “zero gravity” pens.

Contemporary objects such as the “Occupy Mars” wall clock are not relics of the space race, or of space travel, instead they are advertisements for it. This contemporariness is salient: they are the product of our specific historical context.3 Instead of the space relic, the “zero gravity” pen or balloon wallpaper, we have the mass-produced office product sourced from the global marketplace. This object is meant to fade into the background, while offering the ability to support a corporate culture through an Office Depot banality. Today merchandise functions through mass-produced branding components sourced from China.

*

Screenshot of the SpaceX “Occupy Mars” Wall Clock shows the Occupy Wall Street message imposed onto the unsuspecting planet. Image: SpaceX.

34

Percival Lowell’s sketch of Mars circa 1895, with instructions to the printer. Image: Lowell Observatory Archive.

This 1960 Douglas Aircraft ad illustrates a space tourist peering down at the moon.

Image: Another Science Fiction: Advertising the Space Race 1957–1962, 2010.

Branding is a corporate strategy. Young private aerospace companies are not selling merchandise to make money. Merchandise offers publicity, brand building, and a way to occupy visual and market territory, while encouraging corporate loyalty and enthusiasm. At the SpaceX headquarters the employees are like football fans: they bleed the color of their team. Most employees sport a SpaceX or Occupy Mars T-shirt. SpaceX initially created their online shop for employees and hired the e-commerce integration company MashON to design the website and the products. MashON applied SpaceX logo and “Occupy Mars” products to out-of-the-box merchandizing solutions.4 Currently the web shop offers a “Heat Sensitive Terraform Mars” mug and a “Welcome to Mars” door mat.

The SpaceX clock, however, has competing aesthetic influences: science fiction, Occupy Wall Street, and Office Depot banality clamor within its black circular frame. “Occupy Mars,” the words are stenciled like graffiti as though anyone could participate. But, the task of “occupying” Mars has fallen on the private sector, led by for-profit companies with male CEOs. The Occupy movement hoped to lessen the gross disparities in society. What tools do individual citizens have to occupy Mars? And who even wants to occupy it? Is this clock meant to inspire action? There is tension between the sleek, clean lines of custom-made space ships and the poor manufacturing quality of this clock. Perhaps it is an attempt to fit aerospace engineering into tech culture—with its swag and lauding of the hoodie—or to inspire twelve-year-old boys to participate in space travel in the future. Is this is the contemporary version of freeze-dried ice cream?

Mars, here, is objectified. The frame of the clock contains the whole planet, cropped right up to the edge, suggesting an ability to manage

Mars as though the planet is own-able, attainable. Showing the planet without space fails to acknowledge the long journey to the red planet and its space in the skies. Consumers can place a neatly packaged image of Mars on their wall, in the form of a domestic object. Through this wall clock, Mars is imbued with a sense of normalcy and a sense of safety: a kitsch object in a domestic setting contains the unruly planet.

*

1 V olker Welker, “From Disc to Sphere,” Cabinet no. 40 (Winter 2010–11), 25.

2 Nicholas de Monchaux, Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2011), 16.

3 Joe Moran, Reading the Everyday (New York: Routledge, 2005), 35.

4 “Webshop Privacy Policy,” SpaceX, http://shop.spacex.com/ dresscode_privacy_policy/.

This 2014 image shows NASA’s Journey to Mars, emphasizing its partnerships with private companies. Image: NASA.

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The SpaceX Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship reuses rockets to drive down the cost of space travel. Image: SpaceX.

â—Š

THINGS Meg Farmer

Modern Preserves: Mediatization’s Sticky Role in the Preservation Design of Mid-century Domestic Architecture in Southern California KEYWORDS

Meg Farmer is a writer, researcher, and critic with a background in art history, printmaking, and magazine writing. She received two BFAs from Massachusetts College of Art in 2005.

She has worked in award-winning interior design and architecture firms such as BAMO in San Francisco and Ellenzweig in Boston, and has contributed to culture magazines such as CHEEK. She hopes to create new platforms for artists in various localities to build longstanding communities. She received the first SVA Steven Heller Design Research Award in 2014.

Anonymous Authorship Cathedrals of design Domestic activity Good life Grassroots Iconic Image Individual performance Living architecture Mediatization Modern living Participation Preservation Time

36

meg.farmer@gmail.com @mega4eva megfarmer.squarespace.com

â—Š ABSTRACT

In February 2013, I visited the American sculptor Donald Judd’s artist compound in Marfa, TX. I began to think about the preservation of this domestic space and others like it. Here, daily activity was a ghost hovering around the objects, furniture, and other tangibles of domestic life. I became interested in the philosophical and technical issues of preservation, heightened in the case of modern buildings, which used experimental and non-durable materials.

I focused on three examples of Southern California midcentury modern homes, as this area has a plethora of famous and anonymous examples due to the proximity to nearby wartime industry and factories. The Eames Home (1949) and the Chemosphere (1960) served as better-known examples that highlight more rigid approaches to preservation. And a few hours east were the Jackrabbit Homesteads (1945–1960), small kit cabins designed to complete land claims from the 1938 Small Tract Act instituted by the US government to shed unusable desert land. I found that the anonymity of the Jackrabbit Homesteads provided approaches to preservation that were in stark contrast to the strict methods of their iconic counterparts, which had in their time been photographed, written about, and glorified by the media as exemplars of modern living and domestic bliss.

Paradoxically, the lack of disseminated images of forgotten, anonymous mid-century homes like the Jackrabbit Homesteads allows for a more dynamic approach to preservation, as the architecture can still be lived in, while the rigorous and often-precious preservation methods employed by the iconic Eames House and the Chemosphere turn them into museums, or static cathedrals of residential architecture.

Preservation methods that are developed on a grassroots level in lesser-known modern houses, with sustainability and livability as a main goal, might be useful to the preservation of iconic structures where the approach is too limiting. This research argues that preservation discourse and practice would profit from an exchange of ideas between professional and grassroots schools of thought.

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◊ EXCERPT

Introduction In July of 2005, W Magazine published a sixty-page portfolio shoot by fashion photographer Steven Klein entitled “Domestic Bliss.” The concept, devised by Brad Pitt, featured the actor and his Mr. and Mrs. Smith co-star and purported new love Angelina Jolie in various scenes of domesticity aptly set in a Palm Springs mid-century modern home around the year 1963. The spreads evoke a bygone era, with colorful scenes of domestic bliss clashing with darker images of domestic turmoil. Among Klein’s photographs, one bears a strong resemblance to a 1960 photograph of a couple relaxing in the living room of Case Study House #21, built in 1958

by Pierre Koenig and photographed by eminent architectural photographer Julius Shulman. In Klein’s photograph, Jolie lounges on a teal sofa in a Luisa Beccaria silk satin dress admiring her Harry Winston wedding ring, while Pitt mixes martinis in the background in a Thom Browne wool suit. In Shulman’s earlier photograph, the architecture frames a couple surrounded by all the accoutrements of a modern lifestyle: the wife lounges in a bright blue dress with her arm resting over the back of the sofa, so as to prop up her wedding ring; the husband (modeled by the home’s architect Koenig) stands at the Harmon-Kardon stereo system. Shulman’s image depicts modernism as a lifestyle, which had by 1960 become codified and stylized after a decade of absorption into the American public consciousness through the growing avenues of mass media, including shelter and lifestyle magazines such as House and Garden, Life, and Playboy as well as films and television.1 This is a process called mediatization, in the sense of the influence media exerts on society and culture.2 In an exhibition essay, Oriel L. Lucero makes a keen sociological analysis of Shulman’s image:

Koenig does not appear as the home’s architect. Rather, he is the nonspecific husband with his fictional wife who together exemplify the hopes of the postwar utopia[…] Like the drives of couples who migrated to Southern California after the war, the man and wife in Shulman’s photo[…] appear as if they have realized in Los Angeles their search for the good life[...] Like viewers who desire the newest and best products for their home, this non-specific couple appears as the ideal consumers representative of their class.3

Mid-century modern homes served as settings to promote a kind of lifestyle that the masses could aspire to. The W Magazine shoot perpetuates an image of the past, even as it is trying to acknowledge the disintegration of that mid-century lifestyle. What the W Magazine tribute requests is an investigation into the link between image and modern architectural preservation, both in literal photographs and also value-based perceptions. Three cases of mid-century residential architecture in Southern California—The Eames House, the Chemosphere, and the Jackrabbit Homesteads— are representations of the approaches in which modern preservation design is being directed technically and philosophically.

By any estimation, Los Angeles homes built between 1949 and 1960 are valued as first-rate examples of modern architecture.4 West Coast military industries, the California population boom, and the Case Study House Program all contributed to the proliferation of modern architecture in this area. During the War, the government provided ninety percent of America’s capital for western industrial growth and directly invested at least seventy billion dollars in industries and military installations.5

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt in the “Domestic Bliss” issue of W Magazine, July 2005. Image: Steven Klein.

38

Pierre Koenig’s 1958 Case Study House #21 in Arts and Architecture Magazine, 1960. Image: Julius Shulman.

◊

The aircraft industry soared, while aluminum plants and steel foundries lined up like motels in a Monopoly game.

Among the postwar houses built, the three examples herein illustrate not only the spectrum of modern home design at mid-century, but also preservation approaches since. The Eames House (1949) designed by the renowned husband-and-wife team Charles and Ray Eames, and the Chemosphere (1960) by American architect John Lautner have surpassed their fiftieth year mark. This is the point at which historical significance can be designated, according to leading modern preservation expert Theodore Prudon and the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966.6 The Eames House is being rigorously preserved because it is now a temple to two remarkable individuals. It was preserved in photographs and in the daily life of the Eameses themselves. The Chemosphere is less strictly conserved, in part because of what it was perceived to be: a bachelor pad and party place.

Architectural historian Alan Hess describes the two design approaches, noting, “The Eames structure is rational, modular, and consistent [while] the Lautner structure is inventive, less rigid, and exuberant.” 7 Furthermore, The Eames House is now run by a Foundation and open to the public, while the Chemosphere is privately owned. These two structures are instructive in how their modern images were introduced through the photography of the time and how their forms persist through preservation efforts today.

Beyond these examples of residential modern architecture, in an area two hours west of Los Angeles, Jackrabbit Homesteads litter the Morongo Basin desert in various stages of disrepair.8 Built in the mid-twentieth century,

these small cabins are now worn by time, some more extremely than others. The prefabricated materials were sold by commercial builders as kit homes that could quickly be raised in order to complete a land claim made possible through the Small Tract Act of 1938.9 While the Eames House and the Chemosphere have been professionally preserved, the Jackrabbit Homesteads are being preserved by their owners, which expands the preservation debate to include amateur efforts. Interestingly, they are currently undergoing a version of mediatization through several avenues. There is the photography project and book by Kim Stringfellow titled Jackrabbit Homestead: Tracing the Small Tract Act in the Southern California Landscape, 1938– 2008. In addition, efforts to conserve these structures have been widely documented on the photography-based social platform Instagram, through accounts like JT Homesteader, which provides immediate documentation of one couple’s current restoration projects.

Architectural historian Beatriz Colomina argues that modern architecture can be seen as a frame for social expectations. She writes, “Many of the most significant houses of this century were produced for exhibitions, publications, fairs, competitions, and journals. Even those houses that were built for actual clients derived their main impact from their publication, before and after construction. In this sense, it can be said that they are all exhibition houses.”10 This idea helps us understand how images of lifestyle, namely those captured by photographs, emerge in the preservation continuum of important mid-century modern homes in Southern California. While preservation design begins as a physical process of prolonging a building’s life, it ends with a structure whose iconic image exhibits the modern

39

The Eames House Living Room, Case Study House #8, 203 Chautauqua Boulevard, Pacific Palisades, CA. Image: Meg Farmer.

Los Angeles Times magazine cover, April 30, 1961.

Image: Julius Shulman.

◊

spirit of yesteryear but whose materials are often divorced from the original components of the design.

What makes the preservation design of modern homes delicate at times is the nature of the experimental materials. They were, in effect, postwar recyclables of American military manufacturing.11 The raw supplies used for defense technologies during wartime emerged in the postwar period as experimental building materials. As Colomina puts it, “manufacturers were turning wartime industry to peacetime, missiles to washing machines.”12 American domesticity, the private life of a family living within a home, became a national preoccupation during those postwar years, and publicizing modern domestic architecture became an image of consumption. For the first time, it was American and not European modernism that caught the world’s attention; Modernism flowered at the end of the 1940s in Southern California, its birthplace in the United States and the location of many of America’s most significant examples of modern residential architecture. For this reason, mid-century modern homes in Southern California have considerable historic significance. Philip Johnson’s remarks during a 1955 speech reflect this: “No magazine publishes, no school teaches anything but modern, and modern architecture gets more and more beautiful every year. And without being chauvinistic, it can be said that architecture in this country is the best in the world.”13 Today, capturing our modern heritage is gaining momentum in both professional and popular spheres. In the institutional orbit, The Getty Institute of Conservation (GIC) leapt forward with its Conserving Modern Architecture Initiative (CMAI) in March of 2012 to provide new and expert approaches to the preservation

Lily and Peter Stockman’s “Flat Top” Jackrabbit Homestead, Yucca Valley, CA. Image: Meg Farmer.

of twentieth-century modern buildings. 14 Along with Escher Grunwardena Architects, the CMAI has completed the first phase of preservation for the admired Eames House.

Escher Grunwardena was also the preservation architectural firm for the Lautner-designed Chemosphere, which landed an off-screen role as the home of famed book publisher Benedict Taschen. In the nonprofessional sector, many Los Angeles based artists, like Lily Stockman, have taken a tenderfoot approach to preserving what is left of the mid-century Jackrabbit Homesteads in the Morongo Basin.

Jonathan Crisman, writing for Rice School of Architecture’s journal PLAT, theorizes that these cycles have social implications. He writes, The gap between architectural representation and built form is a zone in which design intentions and discursive agendas disappear, shift, and emerge. Another gap however, exists between a built form and its subsequent mediatization, a gap whose outcomes, though less often discussed within the discipline, are of much greater social consequence.15

It is the latter gap that is of interest in this study, where midcentury modern homes became images of American domestic life, and cultural icons. That gap between physical and perceived space transforms our relationship with these built forms, and renders our perceptions of domestic space into an exhibition space of lifestyle.

There are four basic treatments for historic properties: preservation, rehabilitation, restoration, and reconstruction. Preservation is the process of applying necessary measures to sustain the existing form, integrity, and materials of a historic property. Efforts generally target

40

◊

the ongoing maintenance and repair of historic materials and features rather than extensive replacement and new construction. 16 Conserving our modern heritage usually falls under the umbrella of preservation due to the unique quality of the experimental materials that have a short life cycle.

There lies an essential irony in efforts to preserve modern architecture: Modernism in domestic architecture was an enterprise that by its very nature tried to minimize “historical fabric.” In other words, the historic material that remains in these homes today was at one time experimental, industrial, and composed of new systems of construction that are complicated assemblies of several parts. As preservation architect Frank Escher explains, “It is absolutely true that for centuries neither materials nor methods of construction had changed very much, and now suddenly in the twentieth century, this all changes drastically.”17 According to Escher, the experimental technologies in building materials were not tried and tested before implemented. Some held up really well, others did not. If a common application such as a window wall in a modern home fails, preservationists are forced to replace the entire system of glass, gaskets, and the aluminum frame. In many cases, this leaves preservation architects having to remove a lot of the historical elements that they would normally want to retain. If much of the historic fabric is removed in a modern dwelling, what is it we are actually preserving? The actual physical structure or an idea based on an image?

1 Thomas Hine, “The Search for the Postwar House,” in Blueprints for Modern Living: History and Legacy of the Case Study Houses, (Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art; Cambridge: MIT Press, 1989), 166–81.

2 Stig Hjarvard, “The Mediatization of Society,” Nordicom Review (29, 2008), 105–134.

3 Oriel L. Lucero, “Selling Los Angels: The Use of Models in Julius Shulman’s Architectural Photography,” in L.A. Obscura: The Architectural Photography of Julius Shulman (Los Angeles: Fisher Gallery, University of Southern California, 1998) 38–40.

4 Alan Weintraub and Alan Hess, The Architecture of John Lautner, (New York: Rizolli, 1999), 9.

5 Hine and Faragher, The American West: A New Interpretive History, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 515.

6 Theodore Prudon, Preserving Modern Architecture, (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2008), 6.

7 Weintraub and Hess, The Architecture of John Lautner, (New York: Rizolli, 1999), 9.

8 A Jackrabbit Homestead is the original term for a small desert cabin, which was coined by mid-century pioneers and found in the Palm Springs publication Desert Magazine from that same period.

9 Kim Stringfellow, Jackrabbit Homestead: Tracing the Small Tract Act in the Southern California Landscape, 1938–2008, (Chicago: The Center for American Places at Columbia College, 2009), 5.

10 Beatriz Colomina, “The Exhibition House,” in At the End of The Century: 100 Years of Architecture (New York: Henry N. Abrams, 2000) 129–30.

11 Beatriz Colomina, Domesticity at War, (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2007), 12.

12 Ibid. 8.

13 Philip Johnson, “Style and International Style” (speech, Barnard College, New York, April 30, 1955), in Writings, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 75.

14 Christopher Hawthorne, “New Getty Initiative Aims to Boost Preservation of Modern Architecture,” The Los Angeles Times, March 21, 2012, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/ culturemonster/2012/03/getty-modern-architecturepreservation-eames-house.html.

15 Jonathan Crisman, “Pop-Aganada! Reading Julius Shulman” in PLAT (Houston: Rice School of Architecture, Spring 2012), 107, http://issuu.com/alphabetical/docs/pop-aganda.

16 Weeks and Grimmer, “The Secretary of the Interiors Standards for the treatment of Historic Properties with Guidelines for Preserving, Rehabilitating, Restoring, and Reconstructing Historic Buildings,” 17.

17 Frank Escher, Skype Interview with author, February 2, 2015.

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â€

THINGS Susan Merritt

Lay Me Down to Sleep: The Design of Coffins, Caskets, and Alternative Containers KEYWORDS

Susan Merritt, graphic designer and professor emeritus, was head of the Graphic Design program at San Diego State University until 2012.

She co-authored The Web Design WOW! Book (Peachpit Press,1998) and wrote the teaching manual that accompanied the fourth edition of Meggs’ History of Graphic Design (Wiley, 2011). She and husband Calvin Woo co-founded Design Innovation Institute, a nonprofit that fosters experimentation and collaboration between traditional and non-traditional areas of design.

Anonymous Body bag Burial Casket Coffin Compost Corpse Death Decomposition Industrialization Preservation Standardization Time

42

susancmerritt@gmail.com

† ABSTRACT

Throughout our country’s history, coffins, caskets, and—more recently—alternative containers have been invented or perfected by anonymous contributors working in the factories that manufacture them. These wood and metal boxes that have become the standard for American burial are being called into question due to changing attitudes towards death and the shift from indifference to action on the part of some contemporary designers.

This research tracks the journey of a corpse from site of death to burial, through the containers it may inhabit. First, I examine the containers that are designed to enclose, and preserve as much as possible the corpse. These include body bags, coffins, and caskets. Within this category, I consider: the evolution from eight-sided English coffin to four-sided American casket; the desire to preserve the body and methods to achieve preservation; the introduction of gasket mechanisms for sealing bodies in metal caskets to protect them from the elements; standardization of design, materials, and casket dimensions, including oversized caskets for bodies that don’t fit the established standards.

The second part of my research considers an alternative route for the corpse, in which it is not preserved but rather encouraged to decay and decompose. This section encompasses Green burial, the rise of Green cemeteries and memorial preserves, sustainable materials and biodegradable burial containers, shrouds, and unassembled casket kits. It also introduces the work of several young designers who are stretching the boundaries of death by reimagining burial practices and reconfiguring burial containers through the use of biodegradable materials and sustainable technologies.

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† EXCERPT

Human Factors: Industrial Standardization of Size and Measurements Dimensions of a coffin were originally determined by the size of the person. A carpenter would measure the corpse and build a custom box to fit the body. As in other industries, such as the automotive industry, a quest for efficiency during the industrialization era led to standardization. An advertisement for James G. Van Cleve’s Casket Corpse Preserver printed in an 1876 issue of The Casket, a nineteenth-century journal dedicated to the profession of undertaking, references four common sizes: 3 feet 9 inches, 4 feet 9 inches, 5 feet 9 inches, and 6 feet 2 inches. Standardization was among the concerns discussed at the 1894 convention of the National Burial Case Association: “All caskets will be 6 feet 6 inches by 21 inches.”

Anything over 21 inches was considered “double width,” and warranted a surcharge of $2 for oak and $5 for walnut, redwood, and cedar.1 Today the standard dimensions of a casket have settled in at 6 feet 6 inches by 24 inches.2 Heights vary according to design but most are at least two feet high.

But what if the corpse doesn’t fit into a standard casket?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that 69% of adults over 20 years old are overweight or obese.3 In response to the need to accommodate body types that do not conform to the established standards, casket manufacturers in the United States began custom-building oversized caskets about twenty years ago, according to Keith Davis, owner of Goliath Caskets in Lynn, Indiana, whose largest casket is 52 inches wide and holds up to 1,000 pounds.4 Batesville, one of the largest industrial casket manufacturer in the country, features “larger-sized”5 caskets in the Burial

Solutions section of their website. Many of the caskets in Batesville’s so-called Dimensions Oversized® line are “available in many of the same materials, colors, finishes and designs” that Batesville offers in their “traditionally sized models” in order to provide a “comfortable fit for your loved one.”6 These exceptions to existing standards place additional demands on the architecture and environmental design within aging cemeteries, many of which date back to the 1800s.

Reimagining Burial Rituals Where earlier systems of burial aimed to preserve the individual corpse and protect it from the environment, new concepts aim to protect the environment and conserve natural habitat by integrating the body into the ecosystem.

The following contemporary design proposals reconfigure the burial container through the use of biodegradable materials and sustainable technologies.

Italian designers Citelli and Bretzel are the first in Italy to promote Green cemeteries. Their egg-shaped burial containers, called capsula mundi, are made from “starch plastic,” or bioplastic, a bio-degradable material derived from renewable plant sources, in this case sustainable “seasonal plants such as potatoes and corn.”7 The corpse is placed in the capsule in a fetal position and planted like a seed. A tree is placed on top of the burial site with the hope that it will seed a forest. This counters the accepted practice of cutting down trees to make wooden coffins, the burial container currently required in Italy. This is also a symbolic gesture on the part of the designers: “the tree represents the union between the earth and the sky, material and immaterial, body and soul.”8 Placing the body in a fetal position in a seedpod

Goliath Casket custom-builds caskets for bodies that do not conform to the established standards. Image: AP Photo.

This flat-packed biodegradable casket kit can be bought ahead of time.

Image: Natural Burial Company.

Patented in 1870, J.C. Taylor’s Improved Corpse Preserver used ice to preserve the corpse. Image: The Casket, May 1876.

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The “Capsula Mundi” is a burial container made from a biodegradable material.

Image: Capsula Mundi

†

is an appealing cyclical concept as it returns the deceased to the posture of the body just before birth and establishes a discernible connection between birth and death. This position is in stark contrast to the sleeping pose of a corpse in a casket.

Visual artist and designer Jae Rhim Lee wore the first prototype of her Infinity Burial Suit when she presented her concept at the 2011 TED Global conference.9 Lee’s concept hinges on developing a unique strain of fungi, which she calls the infinity mushroom. The fungi would be cultivated, the spores infused into thread, and the thread woven into fabric from which the suit would be made. The deceased would be dressed in the suit when buried and these mushrooms would be trained to decompose the buried corpse while remediating toxins in the body. It is Lee’s hope that “the cultivation process” will promote “acceptance of and a personal engagement with death and decomposition.”10 The Urban Death Project, a nonprofit founded by Seattle architect Katrina Spade, who studied sustainable agriculture before studying architecture, proposes composting the deceased and harnessing “the potential of our bodies after we’ve died.”11 Spade was inspired by the “nurse log,” which is a decaying tree that grows new life as it decomposes in the forest.12 She developed a prototype of a threestory building with a central vault, a burial container that Spade calls the core. The shrouded corpse would be ceremoniously carried in a sling up a ramp that encircles the three-story burial container and laid to rest at the top on a mixture of carbon-rich wood chips and sawdust that fills the core. Imagine the open rotunda of the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Guggenheim Museum filled with wood chips and sawdust.

Royal Color Line, Springfield Metallic Casket, 1929. Image: Casket and Funeral Supply Association of America: 100 Years of Service

According to the website this biological process would take about one month to transform a body into nutrient-rich soil with the help of extra nitrogen and moisture as needed. Compost can be picked up by the family and dispersed however they like. Since there could be thirty bodies in the core at one time, it seems unlikely that people could be sure that the compost is actually the remains of their loved ones. Spade believes that “connecting death to the cycle of nature will help people face their own mortality and bring comfort to the bereaved.”13 In this case, as Sloane notes, the grave is of no cultural importance.

All three of these concepts address growing discontent with current burial practice. It will take time for the public to get used to these radical ideas if it ever does. Funeral director James Olson who is also “chairman of the green burial work group of the National Funeral Directors Association” likens the Urban Death Project to the introduction of cremation, “If I had told you 50 years ago that we were going to burn your loved one at 2000 degrees and pulverize their skeleton in a machine and give you back the crushed bones, you would have said, ‘Eww.’”14 1 M ichael Beardsley, “A Brief History of the Funeral Supply Industry in the United States,” Casket and Funeral Supply Association of America: 100 Years of Service (New York: Keith M. Merrick Co, Inc., 2013), 34.

2 Mike Beardsley, Vice President Sales & Marketing Emeritus, Thacker Caskets, Inc., email interview with author, February 20, 2015.

3 “Obesity and Overweight,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/obesity-overweight.htm.

4 Aishah Hasnie, “Caskets for the Obese Booming,” CBSnews.com, June 22, 2010, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=_DNe6zPFT5Y. 5 “Dimensions Oversized,” Batesville, https://www.batesville.com/ what-we-do/burial-caskets/dimensions-oversized/.

6 Ibid.

7 “The Project,” Capsula Mundi, http://www.capsulamundi.it/ progetto_eng.html.

8 Ibid.

9 “My Mushroom Burial Suit,” Jae Rhim Lee, https://www.ted. com/talks/jae_rhim_lee.

10 “Infinity Mushroom,” The Infinity Burial Project, 2015, http://infinityburialproject.com/mushroom.

11 “Inside the Urban Death Project” and “The Process of Human Composting,” NPR Next Generation Radio, http://www.askcbi. org/nextgeneration/?p=360.

12 Catrin Einhorn, “A Project to Turn Corpses Into Compost,” The New York Times, April 13, 2015, http://www.nytimes. com/2015/04/14/science/a-project-to-turn-corpses-into-compost. html?_r=0.

13 Catrin Einhorn, “A Project to Turn Corpses Into Compost,” The New York Times, April 13, 2015, http://www.nytimes. com/2015/04/14/science/a-project-to-turn-corpses-into-compost. html?_r=0.

14 Ibid.

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THINGS Christina Milan Extending the Sensory Experience: Digital Technologies for Design Displays

☞ KEYWORDS

Christina Milan completed her BA at Rutgers University with a double major in History and Art History and a minor in Political Science.

After a yearlong intermission as an intern with the Smithsonian American Art Museum, she earned an MA from NYU in Visual Arts Administration. Her professional experience includes project-based work at interactive design firm Potion and, most recently, as a member of Microsoft’s App Experiences design team. Cultural interests run the gamut from exhibition design to new media, and from fine dining to agricultural sustainability.

Augmentation Aura Authorship Curation Data Digital collection Education Immersion Interaction Performance Participation Prosthetic Risk Robot Storytelling Visitor numbers

46

milan.christina@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

Design museums are grappling with how to use digital technologies to enrich the visitor experience and to enhance the display of their design collections and exhibitions. As digital technologies become increasingly ubiquitous, people expect them to be a part of the way they engage with the artifacts collected by museums. This changing behavior pressures museums to rethink the way they present design. Museum leadership and personnel changes reflect a growing interest in the application of digital technologies, specifically, the emergence of in-house digital media teams.

Through theoretical framing and interviews with industry professionals, my research examines a selection of three design displays in New York City that integrate digital technologies through different tactics and at different scales: “Charles James: Beyond Fashion” at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2014, which employed robots, visual apparatus, and animations in its display; the 2014 reopening of the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, which overhauled its infrastructure to introduce interactive experiences; and “Design and Violence” at the Museum of Modern Art, 2013, which bypassed the physical space altogether in favor of accumulating content on a website platform. Through this range of examples, I explore how digital media technologies can effectively recontextualize, and thereby enhance, the sensory experience surrounding design objects in design museums, yet always at the risk of undermining the authenticity of the physical object.

☞ 47

EXCERPT

In May 2014, The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute inaugurated its threeyear renovation with the exhibition “Charles James: Beyond Fashion.”1 The Institute’s new state-of-the-art gallery space was conceived to incorporate multimedia presentations. This afforded the opportunity to present a high-tech interpretation of the early twentieth century couturier’s métier.2 Exhibition curators Harold Koda and Jan Glier Reeder hired interdisciplinary design firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) to present James’s construction methods from the perspectives that inspired his work: sculpture, science, mathematics, and architecture.

guiding the viewer’s eye around the garment.

Cameras closely examined details like a garment inspector. The lasers scrutinized like a forensic scientist. Their appearance suggested a type of tactical interface to pull the viewer into the mental processes of gathering data.5 As a counterpart to the silent robotic dance, the video animations act as a portal into the scientific analysis.

The animations extended the natural limits of vision and cognition by presenting explanatory detail invisible by observation of a static garment, extending their physical reality. DS+R refers to its animation approach as “reflections about looking.”6 The animations probed architectural views of the garments: petticoat layers, patterns of the fabric fibers, and panel constructions that revealed the tensile and compressive nature of movement, geometric drapery, combinations of materials that produced sculptural effects, and the garment’s relationship to the human body.7 These views emphasized James’s architectural use of construction, foundation, and structure. Explanatory text seems superfluous by comparison.8 These views also provided a road map to guide an unusual but necessary research process for the animations.

☞

Prosthetics for Extrasensory Analysis From the beginning of the planning process, the design strategy was to demystify James’s unorthodox garment construction with an equally intensive and unorthodox visual analysis. “Architects often use fashion as a metaphor,” explained DS+R co-founder Elizabeth Diller.

“When we started to see the clothes through an architect’s lens, we could understand James’s geometry and construction.”3 To express these concepts, the technical pageantry needed to be meaningful, not “technology for technology’s sake.” Diller explained, “We always start with the same basic question when we’re working in a museum environment: How do we mediate the viewer’s relation to the artifact?”4 Camera lenses, lasers, and digital stories all served as prosthetic mediators to enhance the natural sensory experience for viewing objects.

In their performance state, the robots were illusionary devices rather than functional tools—a subtle parallel to James’s own work, which nods to function but prioritizes visual effect. These robotic arms behaved as human limbs. They extended like the arms of a fashion designer,

Forensic Research for Digital Objects DS+R’s animations prompted a deep forensic analysis on the physical objects that would not have otherwise occurred. The conservation team worked outside of their normal procedures to collect new types of information.9 Standard conservation analysis techniques were used first: archival descriptions, photographs, muslins, patterns, new 360-degree spin photography, and conservation reports. Additional techniques to capture visual detail of invisible construction and materials included X-rays, polarized light microscopy, and reflectance transformation

The Pen, 2015. Image: Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum.

Upstairs gallery detail with Clover Leaf Ball Gown, “Charles James: Beyond Fashion,” 2014. Image: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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Still from the Clover Leaf Ball Gown animation, “Charles James: Beyond Fashion,” 2014.

Image: Diller Scofidio + Renfro.

API Stack pyramid diagram. Image: Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum.

imaging—approaches usually reserved for archaeological or anatomical specimens.10 Physical study was as critical to the design process as physical analysis was to the research process. Kumar Atre, a trained architect and DS+R’s media manager for the exhibition, contributed tools common to architectural practice for further research and deeper analysis. He assumed the role of designer to explore how to digitally reconstruct the garment. His approach combined analog and digital methods such as study sketches of the garment, patternmaking standards, analysis of human form, and garment density. To collect data for the three-dimensional animation visuals, he used a combination of 3D scanners, 360° photography, and visual mapping techniques.11 To compliment these scientific, forensic, and architectural approaches, didactic documentation helped to ensure that digital narratives were faithful to the specific physical object. The conservation team’s research process translated curatorial knowledge into educational materials for DS+R. “We had to explain to the architects what was poetic about a garment,” explained costume conservator Glenn Petersen.12 Petersen annotated photographs of garments and patterns with fashion education notes, for instance, a definition to explain what it meant to “cut on the bias.” Petersen also created GIF and video animation mock-ups to illustrate the construction from pattern piece to full garment. The team also scrutinized each animation for accuracy. “The animations couldn’t show anything that was wrong. For example, if they used a gridded background that looked like the grain of the fabric, and it was wrong, we had them change it. The grain of the fabric is very important for dressmaking.”13 The research process also yielded a deeper

level of expertise on the material objects that positioned the conservation team as advisors to the curatorial team. The curators knew that James’s patterns were unusual and the seams of his garments concealed intentional aesthetic and architectural detail, but the analysis revealed information about the garments not previously known. Because they were intimately familiar with the garments, the conservators could clarify James’s vague archival descriptions.14 For instance, some of the garment names were thought to be simply playful, but they were actually pragmatic descriptions echoed by their construction.15 X-ray analysis of his Umbrella Dress revealed that James used the actual ribs of an umbrella in the panels of the skirt so that it would fall in perfect triangles.16 The Taxi Dress, named to imply how easy it was to take off in the back of a taxi, was previously thought to be a multi-layered item, but analysis revealed that it was created as a single piece of fabric draped several times around the body.17

☞

Archive page detail, “Design and Violence,” 2015.

Image: The Museum of Modern Art.

1 T he renovation incorporated a new study center, exhibition space, and conservation facilities for garment analysis, restoration treatment, and long-term storage.

2 James intended his garments to be studied as objects of fashion history, so he built relationships with his clients so that they would donate his pieces to the Brooklyn Museum. In 2009 the Brooklyn Museum donated its textile collection to the Costume Institute. A subsequent acquisition of James’s complete archives allowed the Institute to pursue this comprehensive exhibition. “Charles James: Beyond Fashion,” press release, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (April 10, 2014) http://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-museum/ press-room/exhibitions/2013/charles-james#.

3 Carol Vogel, “Architectural Underpinnings of Cinderella,” The New York Times, April 30, 2014. http://www.nytimes. com/2014/05/01/arts/design/the-dresses-of-charles-james-at-themet.html.

4 Mitch McEwen, “DS+R Scanning Beyond Fashion at the Met,” Huffpost Arts and Culture, Huffington Post (June 2, 2014) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mitch-mcewen/dsr-scanningbeyond-fashi_b_5421283.html.

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid.

7 Kumar Atre, interview with author, February 12, 2015.

8 Mikhail Grinwald, “Observations on ‘Beyond Fashion,’” Log Magazine, issue 32 (New York: Anyone Corporation, 2014): 24.

9 Kumar Atre, interview with author, February 12, 2015.

10 Rachel High, “Charles James: Beyond Fashion—Interview with Conservators Sarah Scaturro and Glenn Petersen,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art (June 17, 2014) http://www. metmuseum.org/about-the-museum/now-at-the-met/2014/ charles-james-conservation.

11 Kumar Atre, interview with author, February 12, 2015.

12 Glenn Petersen, interview with author, March 12, 2015.

13 Ibid.

14 Glenn Petersen, interview with author, March 12, 2015.

15 Ibid.

16 Kumar Atre, interview with author, February 12, 2015.

17 Harold Koda, “The Calculus of Fashion: Process and Oeuvre,” Charles James (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2014): 53–231; 56.

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THINGS Justin Zhuang

Piracy & Design: Rethinking Intellectual Property in the Third Industrial Revolution KEYWORDS

Justin Zhuang is a Singapore-born writer and researcher interested in design, cities, culture, history, and the media. He has written extensively about Singapore design for various publications including Design Observer, art4d, and AIGA’s Eye on Design. Since graduating from journalism school, Justin has worked on a variety of editorial projects including the award-winning online site Reclaim Land: The Fight for Space in Singapore and several books, including INDEPENDENCE: The History of Graphic Design in Singapore Since the 1960s (The Design Society, 2012). Justin won the SVA Design Research’s Monotype Scholarship for Excellence in Design Criticism in 2014.

Authenticity Authorship 3D printing Commons Competition Copying Creativity Democracy Innovation Intellectual property Knockoffs Language Legal systems Makers Open design Users Value justin@inplainwords.sg

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@justinzhuang justinzhuang.com

‡ ABSTRACT

Knockoffs, fakes, and counterfeits are the bane of modern industrial design. They are unauthorized copies of designers’ intellectual property. They are the stolen profits of manufacturers. They are the products of piracy: a phenomenon wrecking an industry’s will to innovate and create “original” and “authentic” design. But to consumers, piracy offers affordable goods, diversity of options, and sometimes, even better design. Piracy isn’t black and white like a pirate flag, but a nebulous concept whose edges ebb and flow like the waves of the sea. What is a copy to some is homage to another, what is original today is tomorrow’s evolution, what is piracy to the industry is competition to society.

How will we recognize piracy and intellectual property with the rise of digital fabrication technologies like 3D printing? By democratizing access to the means of production, it will become easier for users to copy, remix, and self-repair objects in ways that traditionally infringe upon a designer’s intellectual property. This calls for a need to redefine what piracy means. In response to the digital revolution, some designers and manufacturers have strengthened protection over their designs via the law and technology, while others are opening up access to them, believing that design is a collaborative process that benefits from a community working on it together. Will the rise of open design see an end to piracy?

This research examines more closely the relationships between piracy, intellectual property, and industrial design by studying a variety of case studies and interviews with practitioners. Beyond just a legal and economic issue, piracy is a reflection of society’s assumptions about the design process, what a designer is, and what design is for. Piracy is a ghost that will always haunt the world of design.

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‡ EXCERPT

Fake Originals and Competitive Pirates It is fabricated in the same way that thousands have been made since 1950. It is produced using the same machines built specially for its assembly. It even matches the drawing on a patent issued when it was first designed. But the fiberglass chair manufactured by furniture company Modernica is not an “authentic” Eames Shell Chair—at least, in the eyes of rival furniture-maker Herman Miller.

To Herman Miller, which first mass-produced the chair for the late American designers Charles and Ray Eames, it didn’t matter if Modernica made the shell chairs in the same way it did for close to forty years. Nor was it important that Modernica had then bought over the very equipment used by Herman Miller to produce the shell chairs again in 2000.

Provenance—having a clear record of origin—wasn’t enough to establish “authenticity.”

According to Herman Miller, it was they who brought back the “Authentic Eames Molded Plastic Chair” when they restarted production after stopping for nearly a decade because the process was deemed environmentally unsound. Never mind that their new version was now made in recyclable polypropylene. In 2013, the company reverted to offering fiberglass chairs after figuring out a new manufacturing process that was safer for the environment. In each case, the material was changed, the process was tweaked, but somehow, Herman Miller’s chair was always the “authentic” version.

As the company explained in 2014 via a seven-page response to frequently asked questions about its shell chair, Herman Miller’s version was in accordance with the “vision and standards” of the Eameses—even though both had passed long ago.1 Charles died in 1978, and

Ray, a decade later. “Authenticity” in Herman Miller’s view came from its history of working with the designers, and now, the Eames Office, an organization the designers’ descendants founded to preserve their legacy. This was unlike Modernica, which although using the original machines, had bought them from suppliers that Ray and Herman Miller had broke off from after three decades because of “quality issues”—which also brings to question the “authenticity” of the chairs produced before. “Modernica claims authority based on provenance, however, the detail omitted from its story is that its provenance is one that Ray Eames flatly rejected,” stated Herman Miller. “Customers buying an Eames design from Herman Miller can rest assured they are investing in an authentic well-made product.”2 Making clear its disapproval of Modernica’s chairs, Herman Miller sued the company for infringing on its intellectual property and false advertising. Modernica was just one of the many “unlicensed knockoffs” the company has been combating for years.

But unlike in art, where authenticity can be traced to a piece of work (consider Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait of the Mona Lisa in The Louvre versus print-on-demand copies of it sold at the museum shop), the concept of the original in industrial design is a manufactured myth. In his essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” the late cultural critic Walter Benjamin theorized that the “authenticity” of an object lies in its authority of being actually present in a particular environment and history, and this unique “aura” depreciates as the thing becomes easily reproduced.3 What are we then to make of mass-produced objects, which are essentially identical copies of one another? Journalist Marcus Boon explains

Shell armchair with wire base by Herman Miller in plastic (left) ($459) versus Modernica’s fiberglass version ($395). Image: Modernica.

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‡

in his book In Praise of Copying that such capitalist commodities are presented as “perfect copies” that are cut off from history and the world, and it is through branding, advertising and marketing that manufacturers transform what is “essentially generic into highly charged objects of desire.”4 This is how Herman Miller and Modernica lay claim to selling “authentic” chairs. By owning the trademark to the word “Eames,” only Herman Miller’s furniture can be directly identified with the designers. Nowhere on Modernica’s website does it attribute what the company calls “[e]asily one of the most important and recognizable designs of the twentieth century” to the Eameses. Instead, the company links its “Case Study Fiberglass Chairs” to how they were originally made: “To ensure authenticity of production, the initial shell chair production was overseen by Sol Fingerhut and Irv Green, the same team employed over sixty years ago to develop the original technology.” 5 So while Modernica claims authenticity through how its chairs are manufactured, Herman Miller depends on the endorsement of the Eames Office. Or as Charles Eames himself once said, “The details are not details; they make the product.”6 In this case, the product is authenticity.

The Gray Market of Originals Claiming one’s work as “authentic” is a growing movement in industrial design as designers and manufacturers battle against piracy and try to distinguish themselves from copycats and their knockoffs. For anti-piracy organization Be Original Americas, “authenticity” encompasses a set of beliefs, such as the idea that designs are the property of a designer, an “original design” is more valuable and durable over time, protecting designs would incentivize the creation

of new ones, and that purchasing an “authentic design” is an investment in the future of design.7 In contrast, copies and knockoffs are “not original” because they “intentionally deceive or confuse the customer regarding design origin.”8 Promoting designs as “original” and “authentic” is a response to existing intellectual property laws lack of protection for design. In the United States, a design such as the Eames Shell Chair is not copyrightable, unlike literature and art, and any patent on this mid-century furniture has already expired. Utility patents last twenty years, while design patents protect for just fourteen years. Modernica can legally manufacture the shell chairs today, and they are not the only ones. In the eyes of the law, industrial design primarily produces useful works possibly protected by patents, rather than creative expressions that automatically deserve copyright protection.9 This is a historical legacy of nineteenth-century Britain, when crafts and mechanical inventions were regarded as things achievable by anyone who followed a common set of methods, processes and knowledge, according to historian Adrian Johns in Piracy. An anti-patent camp even emerged during this period, arguing against the system that “denied the progressive character of industrial society,” and adding that, “inventors were not heroes at all, but everymen.”10 In contrast, literary and art works were expressions of the mind and the property of an individual. Today, this distinction continues in how the law recognizes industrial design objects as containing both functional (protected by utility patents), and artistic aspects (covered by copyright or design patents). This “conceptual separability” is far from easy to determine, however, particularly when design is increasingly seen as art.

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The first-generation iPod from Apple (right) as compared to Braun’s T3 pocket radio from 1958. Image: Cult of Mac.

The calculator app on Apple’s 2007 iPhone model (left) and Braun’s 1977 ET44 calculator. Image: Cult of Mac.

‡

In a paper supporting copyright protection for fashion design, attorney Brandon Scruggs points to how architecture works have since received copyright protection in the United States in recognition of their “artistic nature,” and he argued that fashion deserves the same because many see it as a form of artistic expression today, and it has become a highly valuable industry as well.11 The same can be said of all disciplines of design. Like the art world, design has christened its own canon of icons and masters—like the Shell Chair and the Eameses—and it has become an important sector for countries developing creative economies and districts.

In this context, piracy is a threat to the established design order. To Herman Miller’s Director of Communications Mark Schurman, piracy works something like this: “Picture a bunch of rats running around the feet of an elephant, if they feel they can come in and grab one peanut and sell one hundred knockoffs, then they’ll do it.”12 This view echoes what Ettore Rotelli and Patrizia Scarzella wrote in their book, In Defence of Design. Also advocating for industrial design to receive intellectual property protection, the authors call piracy “detrimental parasiticism” that wastes resources and exploits the work of others. But the duo also acknowledged that a copy belongs on a spectrum of objects, ranging from creations inspired by existing designs to the “slavish reproduction of an original” which they term a counterfeit.13 They dismissed the entire range of copies all the same, but their definition suggests that piracy isn’t as black-and-white as anti-piracy organizations frame it to be. What is a knockoff could be a “replica” and a copy of something could be “inspired by”—it is a matter of perception, just as how anti-piracy organizations have tried to build up their works as “authentic”

Patent drawings for the base construction of Eames shell chairs.

and “original” design. The history of piracy supports this view. In Piracy, Johns recounts how in the eighteenth century, it was legitimate for anyone to reprint books somewhere other than where they were initially published, and these same books were only regarded as piratical when they were re-imported to their place of origin. That “piracy was a property not of objects alone, but of objects in space,” suggests the phenomenon isn’t static, but the product of a changing web of relations.14 Consider the case of Apple, the computer company celebrated for its innovative product design and recognized as one of the world’s most valuable companies today. It is also well known for aggressively fighting piracy.15 Not only does Apple try to patent all its designs—from the rounded-edged rectangular shape of its iPads to the transparent interiors of its Apple stores—it also has a history of suing competitors like Samsung and HTC for copying its products.16 When asked about piracy, Apple’s chief designer, Jonathan Ive, once railed, “It’s not copying, it’s theft. They stole our time, time we could have had with our families. I actually feel quite strongly about it. It’s funny—I was talking to somebody and they said do you think when somebody copies what you do it’s flattering? No.”17 But as many have pointed out, Ive’s designs for Apple look similar to the work that celebrated German industrial designer Dieter Rams did for the appliance company Braun in the 1960s.18 Compare the all-white rectangular first-generation iPod to Braun’s T3 pocket radio. Then there was the first native calculator app for the iPhone: essentially a digitized Braun ET44 calculator, right down to the orange “=” button. Instead of calling out Apple’s designs as copies, others describe them as “homage” or hail the works as “a great evolution,”

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suggesting that copying can be creative too.19 In their 2014 exhibition at Mexico City’s Archivo Diseño y Arquitectura, “Copies: Transformation and Development in Creative Processes,” curators Cecilia León de la Barra and Jorge Gardoni found that copying in design could have a positive influence. “When you copy as a part of a creative process, you understand how things are done, and then you can make a new version and also a new object,” wrote the curators in an email.20 They concluded that it was challenging to identify “real originals” as most objects are evolutions or transformations of one another. What matters for them is the intention of the copier. In the case of Apple, many of its supporters have pointed out the differences in function from Braun products. Ive has also publicly acknowledged Rams as an inspiration, and the latter has reciprocated with admiration for Apple too.21 Another reason why Apple gets away with copying is evident in a 2012 incident when Swiss railway operator SBB discovered its trademarked station clock design had been copied by Apple for its new iPad. But instead of accusing Apple of stealing its time—like Ive did of piracy—the company said, “SBB isn’t hurt, but proud that this icon of watch design is being used by a globally active and successful business.”22

Modernica manufactures Eames shell chairs using machines first designed for it. Does that make them “authentic”? Image: Modernica.

1 “Herman Miller Shell Chair FAQs,” (2014), http://www.hermanmiller.com/content/dam/store/documents/herman_miller_ shell_chair_faq.pdf.

2 Ibid.

3 Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” in Illuminations: Essays and Reflections, ed.

Hannah Arendt (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), 221.

4 Marcus Boon, In Praise of Copying (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2010), 187.

5 “Product Details,” Modernica, http://modernica.net/rocker-sideshell.html.

6 “Charles and Ray Eames,” Herman Miller, http://www. hermanmiller.com/designers/eames.html.

7 “Our Manifesto We Believe...”, Be Original Americas, http:// www.beoriginalamericas.com/about-us/.

8 “Not Original,” Be Original Americas, http://www. beoriginalamericas.com/not-original/.

9 “Useful Articles,” U.S. Copyright Office, http://www.copyright. gov/fls/fl103.html.

10 Adrian Johns, Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2009), 271 11 Brandon Scruggs, “Should Fashion Design Be Copyrightable?,” Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property 6, no. 122–137 (2007).

12 Linda Geiser, “Be Original with Herman Miller,” Modestics, http://modestics.com/blog/beoriginal-herman-miller.

13 Ettore Rotelli and Patrizia Scarzella, In Defence of Design: The Issue of the Faux in the Industrial Production (Milan: Edizioni Lybra Immagine, 1991).

14 Adrian Johns, Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2009), 13.

15 Charles Duhigg and Steve Lohr, “The Patent, Used as Sword,” The New York Times, 8 October 2012.

16 Matt Macari, “Apple Finally Gets Its Patent on a Rectangle with Rounded Corners,” The Verge, http://www.theverge. com/2012/11/7/3614506/apple-patents-rectangle-with-rounded-corners. and Valentina Palladino, “Apple Store Receives Trademark for ‘Distinctive Design and Layout’,” Wired, http://www.wired.com/2013/01/apple-store-trademark.

17 Anna Winston, “Design Education Is ‘Tragic’ Says Jonathan Ive,” Dezeen, http://www.dezeen.com/2014/11/13/ design-education-tragic-says-jonathan-ive-apple.

18 Killian Bell, “The Braun Products That Inspired Apple’s Iconic Designs [Gallery],” Cult of Mac, http://www.cultofmac.com/ 188753/the-braun-products-that-inspired-apples-iconic-designsgallery/.

19 Anthony Wing Kosner, “Jony Ives’ (No Longer So) Secret Design Weapon,” Forbes, http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2013/11/30/jony-ives-no-longer-so-secret-design-weapon/.; Jesus Diaz, “1960s Braun Products Hold the Secrets to Apple’s Future,” Gizmodo, http://gizmodo.com/343641/1960s-braunproducts-hold-the-secrets-to-apples-future.

20 Cecilia León de la Barra and Jorge Gardoni, e-mail interview with author, September 8, 2014.

21 Taryn Fiol, “A Side-by-Side Comparison of Apple and Braun Designs,” apartment therapy, http://www.apartmenttherapy. com/apple-design-doesnt-fall-far-from-brauns-tree-176668.

22 Catherine Bosley, “Swiss Railway Weighs Challenge to Apple over Trademark Clock,” Reuters, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/21/ us-apple-iphone-clock-idUSBRE88K0MK20120921.

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Key to Footnote Symbols Before numbered footnotes became common practice to indicate discursive asides or citations, symbols were used to annotate a text.

Often mocked for their association with scholarly pedantry, in fact this chorus of footnote symbols is bursting with drama: Greek history, daggers, death, and stars, all hide within these tiny superscript marks.

*

Asterisk Our first and oldest footnote symbol, the asterisk was developed by Homeric scholars as a way to leave critical comments on manuscripts.

Three lines cross at one point to make an asteriskos, or “little star,” in the footnote constellation.

†

Dagger Originally this was a humble “little roasting spit” for ancient Greek barbecue, although when wielded by a scholarly editor, it could be used murderously, to skewer a writer’s words. The dagger, when placed before a name or year, is also used to indicate death.

‡

Double Dagger A variant of our friend the dagger, but with two handles which, depending on its typographic style, either multiplies or negates the symbol’s deadly power. (Not to be confused with the post-punk band from Baltimore.)

§

Section Sign Stemming from the realm of legal code, the section sign’s double S calls for specificity, often used to refer the reader to a section of a text, signaling importance and focus. Much like our dagger and double dagger, the section sign comes onstage when the asterisk is already spotlighted.

ǁ

Parallel Lines Close together but never meeting, and slightly tilted to suggest a forward movement—a subtle progression—the elegant parallel lines symbol is traditionally the fifth in the footnote lineup.

#

Hashtag The contemporary darling of footnote symbols, the hashtag has departed from its humble beginnings as the symbol used to introduce numbers. It is now embraced by social media users around the world as a method of labeling and grouping content and audiences.

¶

Pilcrow P is for paragraph, pulled crow, and thus pilcrow. Sixth in line in the footnote symbol revue, our handy pilcrow is a waning crescent moon with two stilted legs, a startling backwards look at the classic p.

◊

Lozenge A diamond by any other name. Off the page, the lozenge finds its home in parquetry and as decoration on ceramics, silverware, and textiles. Often referred to by its geometric namesake, the rhombus, it is also featured in heraldry and playing cards.

☞

Index (pointing finger) Though we prefer its other namesakes—the playful printer’s fist and the erudite manicule, the index symbol is acceptable especially when Peter Stallybrass reminds us that, “the history of the hand in relation to the book is above all the history of the index (in the multiple senses of that word).”

↓

Down Arrow In its most simple form—a line with a triangle affixed to one end—the arrow indicates direction. Like many of the more ornamental symbols and fleurons, the index met its demise at the hands of the nineteenth-century invention of the typewriter. Since then, the more standardized arrow has been pointing readers downward and onward.

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SVA MA Design Research, Writing & Criticism Do you care about design and its impact on the individual, society, and environment? Are you interested in honing your research skills and developing your unique point of view?

Whether your background is in design, journalism, science, history, or something else entirely, the SVA MA in Design Research, Writing & Criticism might just be the next step in your career or learning trajectory.

Here in the SVA Department of Design Research we study design in all its manifestations, with a focus on its implications. This means we don’t just investigate designed products or buildings, but also the infrastructure that connects them, and the policy that shapes them.

We try to look at what happens after a designed product is launched. We go beyond the glossy images supplied by the manufacturer to discover how things actually get used and disposed of, and how they impinge upon our daily reality.

We learn to build arguments, based on reporting and research, and to develop compelling narratives, which we then aim to get out into the world in as targeted of a way as possible. Central to the MA in Design Research are applied media workshops in radio podcasting, video, exhibition curation, conferences, event production, and online media. This high-intensity, one-year graduate degree program provides graduates with a comprehensive set of research tools and methods to apply to any foreseeable career path.

We’ve had remarkable success so far, with our graduates going on to work at museums and institutions like MoMA, Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, Vitra Design Museum, Storefront for Art and Architecture, Public Policy Lab, The Glass House, and Institute of Play; at publications including Quartz, Metropolis, Domus, Curbed, Arch Daily, Surface, Curbed, PIN-UP, and Architizer; at companies such as Real Art and Facebook; and design firms like Ziba Design, Steven Holl Architects, Huge, and Project Projects.

Additionally, our graduates have gone on to teach at schools such as RISD, Pratt Institute, NYU, Rutgers, University of Lisbon, and California Institute of the Arts; to pursue post-graduate research at V&A Museum and Harvard University; to publish books with Thames & Hudson, MoMA, Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, and Princeton Architecture Press; to launch their own enterprises such as CLOG and Superscript; and to contribute to publications including Design Observer, Dezeen, New York Magazine, Works that Work, Core77, Designers & Books, Disegno, Los Angeles Review of Books, Print, Abitare, Domus, The Architect’s Newspaper, Design + Culture, and Wallpaper.

They have also won writing awards and grants from Core 77, Design Observer, Design History Society, Frieze, and AOL. For details about the program, tuition, scholarships, and how to apply, visit designresearch. sva.edu. Feel free to email, call, or drop by the department for a visit and to find out about our tuition and scholarships. We’re always happy to talk about our exciting curriculum, show you our lovely studio, and introduce you to faculty, alumni, and students.

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NOTES

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NOTES

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Acknowledgements Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the success of the SVA Department of Design Research, Writing & Criticism over the past year, and to those who have helped to stage the “Exploding Footnotes� exhibition and foster the research documented in this publication.

Molly Heintz, Exhibition Organization Neil Donnelly, Exhibition Graphic Design and Identity Jens Holm, Exhibition Design and Architecture Matthew Rezac, Publication Design Bedwick & Jones, Printing Alice Twemlow, Chair Emily Weiner, Program Coordinator Victor de la Cruz, Systems Administrator Steven Heller, D-Crit Program Co-founder David Rhodes, SVA President Anthony Rhodes, SVA Executive Vice President Jeff Nesin, SVA Provost

Guest Critics: Kurt Andersen, Eugenia Bell, Jeanne Brooks, Felix Burrichter, Rob Giampietro, Steven Guarnaccia, David Hajdu, Alex Kalman, Kelsey Keith, Starlee Kine, Mercedes Kraus, Alexandra Lange, Pierre Alexandre de Looz, Geoff Manaugh, Julia Moskin, Alan Rapp, Damon Rich, Vera Sacchetti, David Senior, Anooradha Siddiqi, Christopher Sprigman, Nicola Twilley, Adrian Wilson, Sharon Zukin Department Design: Matthew Rezac, Program Identity Eric Price, Web Design Department Faculty: Paola Antonelli, Akiko Busch, Chappell Ellison, Daniela Fabricius, Russell Flinchum, Steven Heller, Joshua Hume, Geoff Manaugh, Karrie Jacobs, Adam Harrison Levy, Andrea Lippke, Leital Molad, Murray Moss, Robin Pogrebin, Elizabeth Spiers, Karen Stein, Matthew Worsnick

Andrea Lippke, MFA Design Criticism Thesis Supervisor Daniela Fabricius, MA Design Research Thesis Supervisor Gwen Allen, External Thesis Advisor Julie Vance, Presentations Skills Coach

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ǁ*¶ ◊ ↓ #§ ‡ †

ǁ*¶ ◊ ↓ #§ ‡ † About the Program

The SVA Department of Design Research, Writing & Criticism is devoted to the study of design, its contexts, and its consequences. The curriculum is geared toward providing graduates with a comprehensive set of research tools and methods to apply to research-related careers in publishing, education, museums, institutes, design practice, entrepreneurship, and more.

The program features an unparalleled core faculty, comprised of celebrated curators, editors, critics, and designers such as: MoMA Senior Curator of Design and Architecture Paola Antonelli; design consultant and curator Murray Moss; The New York Times culture reporter Robin Pogrebin; and urban design critic Karrie Jacobs. With more than thirty guest lecturers and critics visiting the department per semester—including The New York Times senior critic Michael Kimmelman, author and Studio 360 host Kurt Andersen, New Journalism progenitor Gay Talese, biographer Deborah Solomon, architecture curator Pedro Gadanho, urban planning designers Interboro Partners, MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte, and British design critic Rick Poynor—the program takes particular care to connect students to inspirational mentors and help them to forge relationships with potential employers, mentors and colleagues.

The program’s curriculum charts the cutting edge of design practice and is responsive to exciting developments in the media landscape. It aims to generate provocative new thinking about design and to help shape the ways in which design is engendered, presented, and evaluated. designresearch.sva.edu