FACE-ADE: THE HUMAN LANDSCAPE

FACE-ADE: THE HUMAN LANDSCAPE, an interactive installation, transforms an iconic home facade from an opaque, private threshold into a translucent wall; an intimate ‘skin’ which reveals a human landscape. It explores the question, “How do domestic architectural symbols engage dialogue about identity and belonging?”

FACE-ADE features a home with a first floor, second floor and attic. Blurring the line between architecture and art, pigmented bio-resin wall studs, contoured with human profiles, rotate in a wood structure, invite the daily cycle of the sun, and simultaneously function like ‘exterior cladding’, when closed. Embedded with repurposed, diverse hair waste from individuals of all genders, ages, and ethnicities, sourced from New York City neighborhood hair salons, it creates a shared identity; a spatial symbol of tolerance and transparency. Hair in the installation consists of varied curly and straight, short and long, natural and dyed, healthy, fake and damaged. Using the intimate and regenerative layer of hair, it additionally invokes the facade we show in public, exposing the vulnerable, versatile costume of beauty. How do we reflect on the natural, manufactured or imperfect? Do we expose or hide authenticity, and consequently the visibility of open conversation?

The installation encourages viewers to contemplate concealed narratives and identities behind the facades in our neighborhoods. Who are our neighbors? The wall pigmentation gradually becomes more transparent, symbolizing a gradual revelation of these lives. By standing on both sides of the installation, seen through hair embedded components, it will seem as if visitors are wearing the hair of others. FACE-ADE is about thresholds, borders, home and the neighborhoods we live in. How do we see ourselves in others? How do we, with our differences, live together?

OUTLOOK

OUTLOOK is proposed for the Department of Transportation Public Art space in partnership with the Concourse House organization in the Bronx, NYC. The Concourse House is a home for women and their children which works to eliminate homelessness by providing families with safe, stable, transitional housing. 

OUTLOOK, is an interactive, 8’x8’x8’ domestic installation space, uses domestic window and home portal fragments to ‘frame’ and ‘re-frame’ a transitional palimpsest of past, present and future. Classical architectural details and repetitive frame/aperture geometries from the Concourse House and site balustrade, anchor and mobilize a sense of multi-directional perspectives. The triangular sidewalk site, an intersection of pedestrian and traffic, offers a perspective over the Grand Concourse road below. OUTLOOK highlights this symbolic perspective using multi-scale window frame apertures. By looking through the installation a sense of movement to an unknown but hopeful future is felt. There are two options for the design:

Option 1: The overall space frame features an open table, symbolic of the family dinner table. Central in the space, a table frame, vertically suspended, is set with wood, colorful cutlery; an aperture overlooking the Grand Concourse through an iconic, collective, heart of a home. A grass garden fills the floor frame. Seating, designed as a frame, invites belonging, sitting by the window. The arched brick window frame, stone door surround, window lintels and pediments, fabricated with wood and pigmented bio-resin, embedded with colorful table cutlery. Empty crevice spaces in the brick and stone house picture frames for photo portraits solicited from community residents, near the site and the Concourse House.

Option 2: Concourse House window and door classical details, surrounding the window frame opening are the same as option 1. In this design, the interior space is empty, except for chairs. A table frame set with cutlery is overhead, covering the space. As daylight passes, the shadow of the table frame and cutlery are cast into the room floor. Chairs inside the space, seem to sit at a table that is not physically there and seems to come and go. While it references the past, one looks up at the sky through the table at the sun, a symbol of hope. Outside the frame, OUTLOOK, still looks out at the movement of the Grand Concourse below. The light and sun move. The traffic moves. Seen from a space to sit and belong to, a room in a public setting.

FENCE TO FACE: THE NEW AMERICAN DREAM

A public art installation, FENCE TO FACE reconfigures the iconic American white garden picket fence, a symbol of status, ownership, privacy and separation. It offers the material of personal property borders as material for face to face connections in a unifying protected enclosure. A sanctuary, it is the place of conversation where borders/fences are deconstructed into a place of Invitation and Belonging, open to nature.

version 1 features a full enclosure that breaks down opening to the sky.

version 2, simplified, opens a border between two fences for visitors to enter.

'SPACES FOR SPONTANEOUS SINGING' Los Angeles Design Festival

Los Angeles, California

‘Spaces for Spontaneous Singing’, was a temporary installation for the Los Angeles Design Festival, Market Row DTLA June 20-23, 2019.  The festival theme was ‘Design with Purpose’. This installation invoked this theme as the ‘Purpose of Joy’ by bringing the activity of ‘singing in the shower’ into the public realm.

Spaces for Spontaneous Singing’ brings the activity of uninhibited singing from a private spatial experience of one’s shower, to the public street, inviting moments of joyful expression within a new form of dedicated urban mini ‘singing shower park’. The installation, open to the public, was sited in conjunction with and adjacent to other Design Festival events and designed as an intergenerational social experience. Conceptual, waterless ‘showers’ - shower bases (stages), privacy screens and seating - can be experienced alone or in social groupings, allowing for a ‘private’ singing experience or for couples, families and friends to sing together, or sit and view the show.

The deeper concept is that in play and joy, vulnerable boundaries of the private and public dissolve. This installation pushes the boundary of personal norms into public social behavior, using an ‘authorized’ play setting for all ages. By reversing public and private behavioral, stereotypical spatial designations, it explores ‘belonging’ - where we feel comfortable, where we hide and where we test our private face in public. The hope is that this experiment yields both the stepping over restrictive personal thresholds, alliances and friendships with a community of participants, and the temporary reclamation of urban space for alternative public territory.

Credits: Renderings by Kelli McGrath

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BAYER LEAPS GLOBALLY TOURING PAVILION

Los Angeles, CA; San Francisco, CA.

'breaking through the impossible'

Los Angeles, November 3-5, 2017, the Bayer Leaps Pavilion, a globally touring installation designed by Dreamland Creative Projects, officially launched Bayer Leaps at the Summit LA 2017 event.

"Bayer Leaps (of BAYER AG) takes the initiative to generate breakthrough solutions in life science, aiming to conquer ten huge challenges facing humanity.  These seemingly impossible challenges are being taken as leaps of faith."

The Ten Leaps are:

1           Give Sight to People Born Blind
2          Cure Life Threatening Bleeding Disorders in Children
3          Cure Genetic Heart Disease in Children
4          Regenerate Damaged Hearts
5          Repair Retinas to Restore Vision
6          Restore Brain Tissue to Protect our Memories
7          Enable High Speed Animal Vaccines
8          Rejuvenate Soil and Protect Root Health
9          Shape the next generation of high performing crops
10         Develop Natural Insecticides

See THE FILM - LEAPS BY BAYER

See BAYER LEAPS WEBSITE

The focal point of the Bayer Leaps Pavilion, designed by DREAMLAND CREATIVE PROJECTS, emulates the actual concrete stair in Lyons, France, the location where Pro Skateboarder, Aaron “Jaws” Homoki attempted the longest skateboard LEAP. Injured by the leap, Jaws made a complete recovery and returned to the stair to try it again.

The Leaps Stair touring installation is a symbol of the ‘leap’ and the attempt to achieve the impossible. The 25 steps of the staircase, brings the brand mission of Bayer Leaps to life, and is a story of never giving up. The design uses the concrete stairs foremost, as the generator and seed for all design elements, finishes and details.

THE DETAILS

Since the design is generated from the stair, all the details flow from the proportions, dimensions, joints, finishes and alignments with the stair.  The massive doors, have hidden pivots and move with the touch of a hand. The exterior of the doors is a concrete finish, applied with a craftsman's hand to match the concrete panel of stairs. Inside the door finish is a softer finish and reveal the sanctuary interior. It is a minimalist monument

STAIR INTERIOR SANCTUARY

Underneath the stairs, and hidden behind the massive doors is a sanctuary, an experiential space for mindfulness, gathering, conversations, relaxation, meditation, yoga, tea ceremonies, and fireside chats.

The soft, organic sanctuary finishes on the interior, contrast with the hard concrete finishes of the exterior. Simplicity of modular details, fluid and flexible continuity, over scale and perspective, create cohesive unity.   The experience is then enhanced with transformative day and night interactive digital messaging, which tells the story of the leaps. The stairs and sanctuary welcome, invite and inspire the big dream. 

SEE NEWS UPDATE  

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REVERENCE

New York, New York

A design proposal for a traveling photography pavilion of the praying mantis inside of its natural habitat, the work of of the artist and photographer, Zana Briski. The pavilion, sited in Central Park, New York City near the Museum of Natural History, features the beauty of the Mantis and educates its wisdom and historically sacred existence, unfolding the wild of nature in an urban condition. The project included a store and a café. As Director for Shigeru Ban Architects.

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KENTUCK KNOB

Dunbar, Pennsylvania

A reception and wedding event pavilion to support the popularity of Kentuck Knob, a home built by Frank Lloyd Wright. Inspired by nearby trees, the undulating, translucent roof creates a canopy which allows light into the pavilion. The design is completely integrated with the exterior through full height door openings. As Director for Shigeru Ban Architects

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FOREST PARK PAVILION

Peoria, Illinois

The Forest Park Pavilion is a multipurpose open air picnic pavilion integrated sensually into a historic park. Curving pin-wheel bamboo segments create a grid shell structure. As Director for  Shigeru Ban Architects.

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LIDO

London, UK

Lido is a proposal for a re-interpreted Lido facility inside a park adjacent to the River Thames in London. Lido spatial fragments are dispersed and submerged into a pool of water, creating platforms for performance. Water levels are controlled for dry and wet shows. An L-shaped corner wall contains a vertical ampitheater with spectator seating for concert and fashion events.  With Dreamland.

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WOMB +

Womb + is a lightweight, translucent meditation sphere. Located in the landscape, this rolling sanctuary moves singly or in groups in response to gravity, wind and rain, until anchored by the entry of human presence. The concept challenges the idea of sanctuary as stable, and welcomes the truth of unpredictability and change. Womb + may lie alone on the land or nestled in groups, forming a community. Lit by solar power, they glow as lanterns in the night. When seated inside, one's shadow can be observed through the skin, from the exterior. Varying designs incorporate material for the sphere that is diverse, storied and organic. With Dreamland.

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DECAY-TRASH TRACE

Decay-Trash Trace is a sculpture project of overscaled, paper bags littered on the landscape. The intention is to lie down and inhabit the bags. It is a metaphorical symbol of personal decay, a message of self acceptance and a place to reflect on our contribution of real trash in the environment. With Dreamland.

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LIBERTY GATE

New York, New York

The Liberty Project is a prototype for a gate project installation at boundaries between ethnic communities in New York City. This prototype is located at a corner between Chinatown and Little Italy. Half of the gate is in Chinatown and the other half is in Little Italy. The full experience of the gate installation is completed by crossing the boundary between the two neighborhoods. A symbol of welcome to immigrants entering the free world, this project uses the metal armature of the Statue of Liberty, discarded during its renovation. It is recycled with glass to create gestural wings over a park on each corner. With Dreamland.

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