benecia, idea sketch
What I find really interesting is the 3 very distinct areas of the city: the city grid, arsenal buildings, and hill houses - when traced each part has a very different spatial typology. In American cities (and the suburban English ones now) the planning structure tends to separate the zoning for the city, keeping residential far away from manufacturing, which makes sense but also means that everyone has to drive and residential is away from shopping and jobs - the zoning has created these distinct areas in Benecia, all kept separate from each other (residential, commercial, industrial). as well as the history of the city can be seen in the parts, as the hill house curvy suburban streets would be the most modern addition and the city grid the oldest (I am thinking). So what if we laid these 3 types over top each other and represent each typology through the same material (fabric) used in a different way.
benecia, design sketches
rope grids for the base of maps, fabric hanging off them. guess my thoughts are also based on what i’d love to physically make too, love the idea of stringing rope off the walls and sewing, printing on fabric or drawing rough images by hand.
jenny
benecia arsenal_ design idea sketches
Starched freeways and roads perhaps? how do you starch things? do they form solid in the place you leave them to dry? If so we could figure out the topography and use blocks/card to hold the roads etc in place while the dry in slopes etc, and then starch them and lay them out to dry in that position… then hang them on bits of cotton from the map above (which would be flat) and the demolished buildings could hang limply inbetween the roads (not starched, sown) and the fabric map above could be flat above…. It could also be in fragments
louise
benecia, idea sketch
I still am really interested in scale and thinking how we could control and change it. I’m thinking form the space into a loose 3d matrix and have vertical space, height, as time. Then the map could be inserted in this, maybe hanging down so people look up into it, which I really liked from the peecedents. Then people can insert a hanging object or string, journey or place memory and it will be in both time and space. And kids will be closest to the ground. Old people bit tricky because higher up, but there would prob be less. I think the state building would look great long and thin hanging down, and the original arsenal buildings, since they are the oldest buildings, they stretch back in time so are the ones most distorted in scale. The ground plane could float above.
Lucy
20 may 2012
hearth burn test.
Our second test build for ‘hearth’ - concrete in hessian bag formwork!
Yerington Paiute Myth ‘Cottontail’s Ecounter with Sun”
It is easy to think that the sun is strong today, but according to Shoshone and Paiute Indian creation stories, it was once far more potent. They recount a time, long ago, when the “sun wasn’t like it is today” because it ‘didnt just go across the sky’ and ‘didnt set in the evening.’ Instead, as related in the Paiute story “Cottontail’s Encounter with Sun,” it stayed motionless in the sky: at that time, “the land was very hot… too hot” and the sun “burned the earth.” To rectify this situation, Cottontail Rabbit shot his arrows into the sky hoping to hit - and kill - the sun. A first, the arrows were burned up, so the enterprising Cottontail “shot a fire stick,” which killed Sun. Cottontail then found the dead sun lying on the ground, cut its heart out, and “threw it high into the sky.” Perhaps realizing the gravity of his actions, Cottontail told the sun that he hadnt actually hilled him, but rather caused him to behave: “I have shown you the way to go. Now you go that way.” As a result, the sun always rises in the east. It always sets in the west. It is now “High in the sky” and so “ it doesnt burn the earth.”
Contrasting Myth and technology: and emphasising the importance of both
This sculpture draws on the Paiute Myth “Cottontail’s Encounter with Sun” to symbolise the contrast between the old Paiute stories and the contemporary technology of Black Rock Solar.
This story attempts to explain the movement of the sun, so is the natural accompaniment to a sundial.
Taking the idea of Cottontail and a rabbit’s home - the rabbit hole- we have formulated an idea for a sculptural sundial. The Sundial focuses on the symbolic ring of the rabbit hole, and an image of Cottontail jumping into it. At noon the shadow of the rabbit forms the shape of the arrow Cottontail used to shoot at the sun. See the image below.
Warmbaby is selected for Arts Benicia Artist in Residency (ABAiR) Program for Site- Specific Installation Artists
7-27th June installation period - open to public
30th June Opening Reception
Exhibition 28th - 15th June
Warmbaby is selected for Yerrington Paiute Commemorative Sundial project in Nevada
Warmbaby’s ‘TfL: Trampolines for London’ idea included in the Architecture for Humanity and Studio 54 “Ideas on a postcard” exhibition. 3-9th May 2012
TfL: Trampolines for London
More socially and environmentally conscious design from Warmbaby!!
TFL proposal
‘Trampolines for London’
Our first test build for hearth - experimenting with formwork for concrete bases.
Inside the peep boxes!
1. Urban Fungi Farm
2. Swan Lake Stage Left
3. Smugglers Alley
4. Sloth Street Signs
