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PUARL Third International Conference | Portland, Oregon | November 1-3, 2013

Posted on by Sabina Poole

PUARL Third International Conference | Portland, Oregon | November 1-3, 2013

View the Photo Essay by Tim Niou
Content from PUARL

After the successful completion of the first two International PUARL Conferences at the University of Oregon in Portland in the Fall of 2009 and 2011, the Portland Urban Architecture Research Laboratory, PUARL, announced the 2013 biennial conference titled “Battle for the Life and Beauty of The Earth.” The 2013 Conference focused on problems and issues that populations are facing in urban environments and buildings throughout the world today.  The conference  took place  in  Portland,  Oregon  in  the  Fall  of  2013,  November  1-­3, in cooperation with the Collaboration for Inclusive Urbanism, CIU.

Taken from the title of the new book by Christopher Alexander, Hans Joachim Neis, and Maggie Moore Alexander, this year’s conference focused on the variety of ways in which urban environments and urban buildings, as well as their design  and  production,  can  support  life, beauty,  and  wholeness,  in  addition  to  confronting  the  challenges  implicit  in  attaining  these goals.   Life as a complex web of relationships, as an emergent process  over  time,  and  as a human feeling was discussed in terms of complexity theory, pattern theory, ecology, sustainability, and landscape to address contemporary discourses and debates in environmental design, urban design, and urban architecture.

The three main themes that were emphasized in this conference:

  • Inclusive Urbanism & the Ecosystems of Cities
  • Building Production for a More Beautiful & Resilient World
  • (Re)Generative and Emergent Processes

 

INCLUSIVE URBANISM & THE ECOSYSTEMS OF CITIES

Understanding of urban environments must begin with the understanding that they are most successful when they represent diverse and resilient ecosystems.   The urban challenge of this age must include questions  about social equity  and urban inclusivity.    How can we promote diversity and enfranchise underrepresented groups in the ecology and processes of cities? From the Collaboration for Inclusive Urbanism,  www.inclusiveurbanism.org, “The role of the city is to  provide  the  contexts  that  invite  people  to  realize  their  social,  personal,  and  economic aspirations. This invitation should be available to all.”

BUILDING  PRODUCTION  FOR  A  MORE  BEAUTIFUL  &  RESILIENT  WORLD

If cities themselves are the organic product of human need, what is the process by which the production of the physical structures of buildings, neighborhoods, parks, and urban landscapes support and augment urban life? What are the building processes that create neighborhoods, urban landscapes and buildings that are resilient and alive within themselves and that support those all-­ important intangibles of life and beauty – the life worth living. Papers in this category will  address  the  question  of  how  we  produce  life-­ supporting  buildings,  complexes, neighborhoods and communities for all people, especially the 93% of the world.

(RE)GENERA TIVE  AND  EMERGENT  PROCESSES

Strong ecosystems form a complex and complete web of relationships that emerge and change over time.   Generative process explores the world as an emergent process at several levels of scale and with regard to different modes, and regenerative process does the same for recurring cycles  of  growth  and  re-­growth.   These  modes  include  elements  of  but  are  not  limited  to physical, artistic, musical, and sociocultural as well as economic themes.   We ask: how can generative and emergent processes as well as (re)generative (urban) design help to solve some of the current  urban challenges  that we face in our cities, neighborhoods,  streets and parks? What are the methods, ideologies, and vocabularies that can support the creation of built environments that are complex, complete, diverse, resilient, and emergent over time?

The 2013 PUARL schedule included presentations by:

Johann Jessen PUARL Lecture: Challenges for Reurbanization in German Cities

A. INCLUSIVE URBANISM & THE ECOSYSTEM OF CITIES

Howard Davis Keynote – Makers in Cities: the Architecture of Urban Production

Michael Garrison Two Primary Schools in Central East Africa Based on Indigenous Sustainable Design

Greg Bryant Referendum on Urban Life: A City Stops Development-As-Usual

Michael Tavel The Culture of Sustainable Urbanism

Robert Walsh The Lovable City: Thomas Mawson’s Civic Art (1911) Applied to Contemporary Urbanism

Regan Greenhill 7@ Public Amenities in Barcelona’s 22@ Information District

B.D.Wortham-Galvin Contingent Urbanism: when tactics are the strategy

Gabriel Brown, Howard Davis, Hajo Neis Old Town/Chinatown Research and Studio

B: BUILDING PRODUCTION FOR A MORE BEAUTIFUL & RESILIENT WORLD

Stephen Duff Keynote – Significant Details: Design & Construction Processes in Four Design-Build Apprenticeship Projects at the University of Oregon

Sergio Palleroni Keynote – Public Interest Design

Aysun Ozkose Ecological Homes for a More Beautiful & Resilient World at the Event Room

Kyriakos Pontikis Eco-Humane Design

Christopher Robin Andrews Architectural Ornament in Haitian Culture

Ayesha Batool The Resilient Existence of External Perforated Solar Screens In Islamic Architectural Environments

Tom Kubala Toward Carbon Neutral Operation

C: (RE)GENERATIVE AND EMERGENT PROCESSES

Masami Kobayashi Keynote – Fukushima Workshop Summer 2013

Greg Bryant Christopher Alexander’s Dialogue with the Computer Industry

Doug Schuler The Surprising Power, Vitality, and Potentiality of Examining the “Dark Side:” The Collaborative Production of an Anti-Pattern Language in an Educational Setting

Takuma Ono (Re)generative and Emergent Processes

James Miller Resilience Found Through Human Processes in Post-Disaster Haiti

Michael Mehaffy Changing the “Operating System for Growth:” Diversity, Resilience, Beauty

Takashi Iba Making a Movie: A Pattern Language

Yodan Rofe & Kyriakos Pontikis Sketching a Sustainable Form Language for a Neighborhood

Ross Chapin Pocket Neighborhoods and the Scale of Sociability

Peter Baumgartner Patterns in Education and Architecture

 

 

About the Portland Urban Architecture Research Laboratory

The Portland Urban Architecture Research Laboratory, PUARL, seeks to promote wholeness and sustainability  in  the  urban  and  architectural  design  process  by  conducting  basic  and  applied research  in addition  to working  on practical  urban and architectural  projects  both within  the region  and  internationally.  PUARL  provides  a  platform  for  the  exchange  of  ideas  and  the discussion of research and professional practice for scholars, academics, and professionals both through their work and the organization of international conferences and symposia. Topics of interest  include urban  sustainability  and  wholeness,  generative  process,  pattern  languages, living  architecture,  complexity  theory,  emergence  and  unfolding,  and  the  nature  of  order. PUARL is intent on continuing to advance these fields of investigation and influence the conduct of architecture and urban design worldwide by providing and encouraging an interdisciplinary approach  to  critical  and  relevant  topics  across  fields  and  throughout  the  world. puarl.uoregon.edu

About the Collaborative for Inclusive Urbanism

The working premise of the Collaborative for Inclusive Urbanism, CIU, is that inclusive cities are both more  affluent  and more  socially  just.  Inclusive  cities  are  more  affluent  because  they mobilize and enable a wider spectrum of people and talents than a city in which some of those human  resources  are  marginalized.   They  are  more  socially  just  because  by  including  the otherwise marginalized in the productive activities and opportunities of the city, inclusive cities offer  better  access  to  pathways  for  social  and  economic  betterment.    Inclusiveness  works against  gentrification,  and  its  shadow:  urban  decay.  It  works  against  dividing  the  city  into ghettoes.  It does not mean freezing growth or preventing redevelopment; rather, the opposite—encouraging more sustainable, prosperous, widespread growth and development by avoiding exclusivity, dislocation and the heavy, often ignored costs they carry.   The role of the city is to provide the contexts that invite people to realize their social, personal, and economic aspirations.  This invitation  should be available  to all. In the service  of this goal, we carry out research and develop innovative ideas that lead to designs, policy recommendations, and experiments in practice.  www.inclusiveurbanism.org

 

UO Architecture Alumna, Ashley Koger Travels to Fukushima, Japan

Posted on by Sabina Poole

A Week In Fukushima

Abandoned cement factory, Fukushima. Photo: A Koger

 

By Ashley Koger

 

[Editor’s Note:  Ashley Koger graduated from the University of Oregon in Portland Department of Architecture in spring 2013 with a master of architecture.  She was eager to explore how she could put her experience to good work and engage herself in projects that might benefit the world.  Seeking to expand her experience, she approached UO Portland architecture professor, Hajo Neis and asked him how she could continue to stay involved and active in an academic university setting.  Neis suggested she join him and his colleague, Masami Kobayashi of Meiji University in Japan for the student summer exchange workshop sponsored by the Architectural Institute of Japan (you can read about this collaboration,  here).  Having to spend only about $200 out-of-pocket (AIJ sponsored the students and generously provided all accommodations, meals, and transportation), Ashley joined the group that was comprised of students from all over the world; and for one week this last summer immersed herself in the situation of Fukushima, Japan investigating ways to help a landscape and a people she would become somewhat enamored with. What follows is her story. And her images. –Ed, SS]

 

The schoolgirls, dressed identically in plaid outfits, hung their heads in exhaustion gently rocking from side to side in unison with the movement of the train.  As the train slowed at our stop, their bob haircuts swayed across their noses and back again.  I didn’t know it yet, but their tiredness foreshadowed the week to come in Fukushima—the place I would be spending the next ten days.

Napping school girls, Fukushima. Photo: A Koger

No doubt you will remember hearing about Fukushima in the recent past.  Not many of us will ever forget seeing images of that tidal wave sweeping over the sea wall and engulfing everything in its path.  This disaster was unfortunately followed by the news that the tsunami had also caused the explosion of Fukushima 1 at Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant on the following day,  March 12, 2011.  Now I was in this Fukushima, hardly two years past the disaster, and finding myself in a position to explore this region and, if at all possible, offer ideas and inspiration to an area newly abandoned by its citizens.

Abandoned playground, Fukushima. Photo A Koger

But on this day, the day of my arrival, I was more captivated by just observing the people and the landscape as it flew by the train windows.  It would not be the first time I would notice this almost charming and close-knit habit of train-napping.  In fact, watching people sleep on the train is a comically common occurrence in Japan.  Businessmen often offer their shoulders to neighbors who have fallen asleep accidentally.  The buzzer that dings at each stop is jarringly loud, perhaps intentionally so that you will wake every few minutes and make sure not to miss your stop.  The system is designed to accommodate the very, very tired.

Order and organization, Tokyo Meiji Jingu. Photo A Koger

I was on the train with the sleeping schoolgirls and eight people I had met just hours before at the main terminal of Tokyo Station.  We had traveled from subway to bus to commuter train, and had come from Tokyo, the largest city in the world, to one of the most rural and under populated areas in Japan, all in the course of four hours.  From passing along the highway and seeing skyscrapers for miles, we were now moving at commuter speed past unending fields of rice and tobacco.

Roads, pedestrians, roads, Tokyo. Photo A Koger
Rice fields, Fukushima. Photo A Koger.

The nine of us were a diverse group.  There were four Japanese students from Meiji University, 4 students from Thailand, and me, the one American attending the workshop from the University of Oregon School of Architecture and Allied Arts Department of Architecture with professor Hajo Neis of the Portland Architecture Program.

 

When we disembarked the train, we were greeted by the rest of the students attending the workshop, a group of eight Indian students, a landscape student from Iran, and two more Japanese students from Tokyo University.  We communicated in English and asked questions of each other’s backgrounds.  I quickly learned that the Indian student were from C.E.P.T. University in Ahmedabad, India, where I had attended a study broad during my junior year of undergraduate.  When we learned we had friends in common, we quickly became friendly and verbalized the all too common phrase, ‘what a small world!’    But it was true; it was so interesting that we were all instantly comfortable with each other, even though we didn’t really know what came next on our adventure.  It was a sunny, warm day, and we sat outside and joked and waited to see what came next.

UDCT, our workspace, Fukushima. Photo A Koger

We walked through the street of the small town and came to our office for the week; with it’s acronym clearly spelled out in neon orange letters on the building: UDCT- Urban Design Center Tamura, the only open building on the street.  The purpose of all of us in Tamura for 10 days was to help with this exact problem.  Tamura city, a collection of 5 small towns within rural Fukushima, is a shrinking city.  Since the earthquake and subsequent nuclear power plant explosion, this problem has been exacerbated.   Many people who were forced to leave during the earthquake have decided to not come back, and Tamura is struggling to survive.

Festival, Tamura: a struggling place. Photo A Koger

In addition to our group of students, we had onboard with us University of Oregon Professor, Hajo Neis,  Meiji International University professor Masami Kobayashi, employees of the Architectural Institute of Japan (AIJ), and employees of the UDCT. Our goal was to learn about Tamura, and use our architecture and urban design skills to come up with ideas for ways to improve Tamura and encourage people to move there and to visit.

 

After learning the basics about Tamura, our research started the second day.  In a single day, we traveled to all the small towns in Tamura and met with interested townspeople to learn about the history of the place and the visions for the future.   We were all enthusiastic with what we knew to be “good” ideas:  we knew a lot needed to be done, but to each of us, it seemed like a place of opportunity.,  We were driving through miles of beautiful farm land, and it was easy to forget that there was anything wrong.  Then we would see the piles of bags of contaminated soil and be reminded of why Tamura needed our help.  On the bus between towns, I industriously sketched ideas and wrote notes of my urban design thoughts.  The next morning, we each needed to have a design proposal, and I was squirming with ideas.

Street festival, Fukushima. Photo A Koger

I came up with an idea of connecting the small villages of Tamura with a cycling road.  Being a road cyclist myself, a hobby inspired by several years in amongst the avid and somewhat crazed cycling ethos of Portland, Oregon , I quickly fell in love with the winding roads of Tamura and thought it a great place for cycle-tourism.  The roads are of high quality and they meander through the beautiful rice field scenery, something I had never seen before traveling to Japan.  I was embarrassed when I had to ask, ‘so… where are the grains of rice?’  I quickly learned from Hiroshi, one of our professors from the AIJ, those don’t grow until September and October, just before harvest.  Without a single word exchanged,  a yen coin was given to me by our driver, a local farmer, to explain.  He flipped it over and pointed to the mature rice plant insignia on the back.

Working late night, UDCT, Fukushima. Photo A Koger

My cycle-tourism ideas coincided with some other ideas of students in the workshop, so five of us were grouped together with a theme to explore: ‘Tourism and Existing Local Assets.’   The process moved very quickly, as we didn’t have much time and needed to produce a presentation for the city Mayor and townspeople in two days time.  We worked through schematic ideas and tried to come up with a theme for the urban design concept of bringing tourism to Tamura.  We mapped all of the existing assets, we surveyed roads; we interviewed Inn owners and shop keepers; we looked at farmland and the vacant buildings on the main streets.

 

When the day arrived for the mid-week critique, we were given good feedback from the professors and the townspeople, but we had a lot of work to do in the 4 days remaining in the workshop.  Amazingly enough, by this time we were already in a routine.  We left the hotel by 9 each morning, worked straight until 1, took a quick lunch break, worked until dinner, had a review with our professors, and continued working until exhaustion set in around 10, when we would return to our hotel to relax in the Onsen hot tub for 30 minutes and, then, fall instantly asleep in the tatami room.  It was grueling and truly immersive, and I was exhausted; but I was having such a good time I barely noticed how tired I was.

Photoshop generated images from Koger's project: rest space, cafe
Photoshop generated images from Koger's project: Cement factory proposal
Photoshop generated images from Koger's project: CYCLE RACE, Tamura

The last few days of the workshop felt intensely like the last week of a studio project.  We had too much to do and not enough time.  It was rewarding though, because we knew that the more we could show the people of Tamura, the more excited they would be about their city and the more energy could be restored in the community.  Our idea had become a little complex, but also refined.  We were proposing a system of cycling paths through the region that would reconnect the small towns.  At each town, a group of resources would be provided, including a café, cycle repair shop, rest rooms, and convenience store.  These resources would be created in the existing vacant buildings, helping to revive the town main streets.  A new street signage campaign would modernize the navigation, and flowers would be grown throughout the region to help diversify the scenery along the route.

The Mayor loved our proposal; saying that he would like to implement our signage strategy in Tamura soon.  It was really nice to see how all the towns people appreciated our design efforts and it helped them to see hope for the future of the city.  The workshop was an extremely satisfying experience.

 

Every night, no matter how tired, I managed to write a few pages in my diary about the events of the day.  I somehow found the energy, and it helped me to unwind after the intensity.  I will admit, more than once I fell asleep with pen and diary in hand.  The memoirs included in this article are excerpts from my diary.

 

I have always been interested in visiting Japan.  I think my design sensibilities are somehow Japanese: I love concrete architecture, simple spaces, and eating while sitting on the floor. Tadao Ando is my ‘favorite architect,’ if I have to do something as silly as choose only one.  My favorite coffee mug that I drink out of every morning has J-A-P-A-N etched into the ceramic base.  I drink green tea:  the bitter Matcha kind that most people don’t like.  I try to live simply.  I eat my spaghetti with chopsticks. and I eat sushi with my family for Christmas dinner. I know none of these Asian customs makes me closer to Japan… but I guess I am just saying that I have appreciated, and admired, Japan for a while without really knowing why or where the infatuation began.

 

Now that I have visited Japan I know that my infatuation has transformed into a respect and a knowing that Japan is a place I feel incredibly comfortable.  The most amazing thing to me is that sense of comfort never waivered during my trip, even with the huge contrast in my experiences.  I felt just as safe, and welcomed on the busy streets of Tokyo as I did at the workshop while staying in the radiation contaminated Fukushima.   The people everywhere are respectful, kind, and thankful for what they have.  I actually never felt sad during my trip in Japan.  Even in Fukushima I was filled with an overwhelming sense of hope.  I have no doubt that the people in Fukushima will overcome the disaster and excel way beyond its boundaries.  I respect so much that the Japanese never sit around and feel sorry for themselves.  They are constantly propelled with forward momentum, and for that reason I believe they can never fail.

 

The sense of hope is incredible.  The Japanese are the kindest people I have ever met.  I hope to always be inspired by this determination and kindness.

Refuge Camp, Fukushima. Photo A Koger

[Ashley Blake Koger graduated from the University of Oregon Masters of Architecture Portland Program in June of this year.  She spent the summer traveling, and is now back home in Portland and working for GBD Architects.  She yearns to find time to write, read, and bicycle more, and would most likely be happy camping in the forests of the Pacific Northwest indefinitely.  She promises to find herself in Japan again soon.]

Ashley Koger, in Japan, summer 2013

 

"Bridging" in Portland's North Park Blocks

Posted on by Sabina Poole

You and I Belong in this Place: Bridging

In the winter of 2013, students in Philip Speranza’s Place Branding for Public Services studio collectively made a single, full-scale urban installation fabricated entirely by 4 x 4 boards.  The students’ finished work was presented to Portland’s Regional Arts and Culture Council and the proposal made that it be deployed in local parks as an object that would inspire “an urban intervention and evoke a conversation of the values of a city….that are based on the very compassion for one’s fellow citizen.”  Under Speranza’s direction, the studio investigated Bruno Latour’s idea of “attachment” as a way to connect a work to the live human context of a site over time.

The students involved in this project

 

Jesse Alvizar, Natalie Cregar, Vijayeta Davda, Sermin Yesilada, Tina Wong, Grace Aaraj, Charley Danner,Wilfredo Sanchez, Srivarshini Balaji, Timothy Niou, Oliver Brandt, Hanna Lirman, Haley Blanco, Jenna Pairolero, Eli Rosenwasser and Henry Smith

The entire installation lay dormant for several months housed in the UO in Portland’s Under the Bridge Space while Speranza worked tirelessly to obtain permits, and permissions.  On November 2, the piece, titled simply, Bridging successfully made its way into the public eye when a small group of students, along with Speranza, loaded up the boards on a rainy afternoon and re-constructed the piece on the damp grass of the North Park Blocks between Davis and Everett streets, firmly nestled in the greenway that unites the Pearl District and Old Town | Chinatown in Northwest Portland.

Architecturally-inspired and artistically-conceived, Bridging is a relatively approachable piece built entirely of 4 x 4 cedar boards that form a block-like structure about 4’ high and 9’ long and 2’ wide.  Boards 4’ in length slide in and out of the block to project from either side forming both places to sit and places that are desk or table-like….places to sit near a companion or places to be next to a stranger.  This human-scaled structure was conceived of by the sixteen architecture students named above (all from the School of Architecture and Allied Arts, University of Oregon in Portland at the White Stag Block) who designed and built Bridging during the winter term 2013.  The students had investigated ideas of place branding and public service in Portland, Oregon and Barcelona, Catalunya. Diagramming and parametric design methods led to the use of traditional and digital fabrication techniques in the White Stag Block Fab Lab and Woodshop with John Leahy.  Studio reviews conducted during the winter of 2013 term provided invaluable input from members of the Creative Corridor including partners and collaborators, Kristin Calhoun of the Regional Arts and Culture Council, wood crafts person and designer Richard Nelson, Corey Schreiber of UI Culinary Institute, Bob Hastings of Trimet, artist Tad Savinar, Brian Ferschweiler of Blanchet House, faculty from the University of Oregon and other members of the Portland community. The project came together with a strong sensitivity for the importance of community and keeping the audience (the people of the area) a crucial part of the partnership and involved in the process of imagining where and how Bridging would be integrated into the community.

Goethe wrote that architecture is “frozen music,” and Bridging is its own diminutive arabesque.  The piece is small and forte enough to make one wonder if it is meant to be climbed upon or simply observed; the pixel-like translation of the 4 x 4’s creates a rhythmic and tantalizingly predictable ornate patterning –visually making this piece captivating.  The spaces between the boards, channeling light through the piece with minuscule sense of regimented authority adds to this patterning further accentuating the idea of bridging—even light is taken from daylight and allowed to explore travelling through the installation and peeking out the other side with almost musical precision. Bridging cleverly bridges worlds we exist in from numerous insightful angles—that of the handmade and handcrafted to that of the computer-generated and rendered in pixel imagery.  It is by no means in error that the 4 x 4 squares grouped together in a predictable formation to create a greater whole remind us of the pixels prevalent in such massive yet imperceptible quantity on our computer screen and are responsible for concocting the digital images we are bombarded with daily.

For its premiere deployment, Bridging has been carefully placed in Portland’s Creative Corridor North Park Blocks where it will stay for the month of November.  To the very north, stands Lee Kelly’s magnificent (at 23’ wide, 11’ high and 6’ in depth) cor-ten steel monument, Memory 99 patiently waiting to majestically define future-Pacific Northwest College of Art’s courtyard entrance.  To the west, lies the bustling, affluent, and delightfully albeit understandably supercilious Pearl District; to the east, Old Town | Chinatown quivering with self-discovery, robust cultural history, and renewal, where the city’s homeless and destitute can find shelter, food and comfort and the winds of change have blown in to bring both economically refreshing merchant opportunities and significant, community-enhancing educational institutions (one of which is the UO’s own White Stag Block).  This entire area, fundamentally, is a place of change, of melding social stratospheres, and a place where a short walk of a few blocks will make it clear just how those who have can, and do, co-mingle with those who have very little.  Immediately to the south of Bridging, the North Park Blocks offer a well-used children’s playground, and Hao Baozhu’s generously donated life-sized bronze elephant. Indeed, the location is ideally suited to objects that encourage play, interaction and exploration and, due in large part to the efforts of Portland’s Regional Arts and Culture Council and executive director, Eloise Damrosch there already exists here a sort of city tradition of placing major artwork in the Park Blocks that began with the South Park Blocks and RACC’s public art projects.

Into this socially, economically and culturally vibrant environment, the semi-permanent, pristine Bridging might seem a bit overshadowed, its scale dominated by time-induced patinas of nearby permanent work, its wet and unfinished wood surface prone to the ravages of weather.  Indeed, even the towering elms with leaves seasonally adrift surrounding the installation with a framing like quality seem just a bit dwarfing.  In only the few days Bridging has been in situ and in the damp, discouraging gray of a Portland afternoon, passersby can’t help but stop and touch, look and wonder.  Possibly mostly due to a rain-drizzled surface, not many have ventured to sit down on the invitingly pulled-out boards, made ready to give one a place at the table.  However, judging from the top surface scuffed and imprinted with the dark marks of shoe treads, apparently, the piece has proven to have an exploratory “soap-box-like” appeal.

Stand next to Bridging for a little while, dry off a few of those boards, and actually invite people to touch and explore, show them how to sit, put down a coffee cup and something happens.  Now public art is not meant to come with directions nor suggestions on how to use the piece or what to do with it, this is in the hands, and delight, of the individual—the chance to explore, to look or to physically experience an object is diplomatically left to one’s own personal discretion.  Bridging is a captivating community piece and has so much potential to launch conversations powered by community in a non-rebellious and non-confrontational way that encouraging people to experience the sit-down-with-me connection and interacting with the audience for Bridging proves an illuminating undertaking.

I tried this one rainy afternoon.  With cappuccino in hand, I stood by Bridging, offering explanations and demonstrations to any interested passersby.  All were eager to listen.  Some asked why.  Others seemed to need no explanation as if simply a place to sit was explanation enough.  But when I tried the true social experiment,  asking the public to share the space with individuals from the community of varying backgrounds, (the reason behind Bridging), things got really interesting.

 

Philip Speranza writes:

 

Bridging, 2013 evokes understandings of identity and public service.  Citizens and visitors of Portland interact through this art piece to sit, eat, rest and converse, adapting the piece for individual uses.  The traditional boundaries of orientation and personal space are intentionally blurred to raise consciousness through unplanned social interactions. Interactions are bridged from one side to another by three types of 4×4 inch cedar units.  Long cedar units slide for seating. Shorter interior cedar units slide for play. The two sliding movements give over ownership of the form to the user. Outer cedar units are fixed.

When I had the opportunity to explain the intention of Bridging, people were interested; when I pulled out and gestured to the boards ready for them to sit, things were a little more tense.  With Speranza’s directive in mind, I purposefully welcomed anyone who walked by the installation to take a seat and learn about the piece. I offered, with equal hospitality, a place to gentlemen pushing tarp-covered grocery carts piled high with worldly possessions and to debonair, pipe-smoking urbane individuals.  Both seemed reluctant to acknowledge or sit close to the other.  Many times, if one sat down, the other left.  Admittedly, it is a tall order-to ask and to expect mere strangers to sit with each other as if acquainted.  Was it the social distance or the lack of familiarity with one another? Bridging was compelling us to recognize there are barriers, invisible, intangible, but barriers nonetheless.

Bridging being used by local residents.

Speranza says, “Subsequent installations will bridge unintended social interactions between citizens with regard to neighborhood orientation and will occur for approximately one month in each O’Bryant Park, Jameson Square and Holladay Park through the winter 2014.” One can’t help but wonder what the reception at these other places will be and what that will say about our own dear neighborhood.  Speranza and his group of students have mindfully moved past divisions and asked us to graciously move past them, too:  recognizing the socioeconomics of what surrounds us might be one of our most important observations.  Unquestionably, much of urban life allows us to exist in a bubble of our own comfort level.  It is places like the Creative Corridor, and the North Park Blocks where exploring these divisions can make a difference.

You can ask yourself how you would react in this situation, if asked in a pleasant outdoor park to sit down and share your space with a complete stranger, be he dressed similarly or vastly different from yourself and in varying degrees of cleanliness.  Would you sit down and share a conversation?  Would it be exhilarating or exhausting?  Awkward or illuminating?  Portland is a vibrant city, attractive to permanent residents and tourists;  the region spanning the Pearl District and Old Town | Chinatown accommodates feelings of belonging from diverse backgrounds and economic levels compelling solutions that embrace the real essence of a city:  the ability to cope with everything from hardship to success, from recession and homelessness to affluence and excess.  Bridging, in a small way, reflects these imperative ingredients—urging us to sit and engage in dialogue or proximity to every aspect of our city, from ethnic diversity, to economic hardship and the unhomed, to the luxury of high-priced retail shops and social opportunities in bars and clubs of varying clientele and challenges us to make something of an experience or recognize the need for a solution embracing tolerance and diversity.

 

Bridging gently encourages and challenges us to reach new conclusions about the people in our neighborhood, about us.  And it has provided a group of University of Oregon students an opportunity to experiment with how shared experiences and collaborations can be kindled and the possibility of inviting people to feel a sense of belonging.

 

Kristin Calhoun, Public Art Manager of the Regional Arts and Culture Council, commented,

 

The work is an open-ended invitation for people to come together and relate to each other on a very basic human level- sharing a meal together. I am looking forward to seeing and experiencing the work in the various locations and seeing how the stories unfold. That is part of the magic of putting work out into the public to me, seeing how it is received, used & interpreted by the broadest possible audience.

 

Speaking more towards how this project melds into the intentions of the UO School of Architecture and Allied Arts, administrative director of the UO AAA in Portland, Kate  Wagle lucidly articulates,

 

Bridging embodies the highest and best values of UO’s School of Architecture and Allied Arts. Intellectual speculation, hands-on experimentation, and open-ended social activism, applied in the service of ‘making good’, ideas, conversations and experiences in the context of real community.

 

This last week, protestors once again gathered in downtown Portland to bring attention to the Occupy movement, and the city was reminded of the importance of community, and the power of community.  As the waterfront of Portland was dotted with protestors, some of them masked, and mounted police stood by ready to subdue these contemporary insurgents, Bridging took on a new meaning.  Rather than such collisions of politics and people, of police and protestor, are there ways we can offer a better incubator to solutions by tolerance and diversity being invited to sit at the same table?  We have Portland—and this remarkable Creative Corridor—within which contains the components of a vital urban future—from the wandering nomadic-like unhomed, to the struggling recession-emerging businesses to economically vibrant shops, restaurants, world-renown places of creativity and innovation and the thriving intellectual university and college environment –all prevail along our streets effectively bringing us together. Sit at the table of Bridging and talk to your neighbor…. from unexpected collaborations, to unpredicted connections: so much is possible.

 

In the timeless words of American singer-songwriter, folk musician, Woody Guthrie, “this land is your land, this land is my land.”  Please take a moment to stop by Bridging and take your place at the table; because it is yours and it is mine, and we should all be talking.

 

[Bridging is installed in through the Regional Arts & Culture Council’s in situ PORTLAND which seeks to place challenging temporary works in public that will serve as a catalyst for dialogue about art and/or contemporary issues.]

 

 

Students involved in this project and their original project titles that culminated in Bridging, are:

Adaptable Interaction, Jesse Alvizar and Natalie Cregar
Enlightening Celebration, Vijayeta Davda and Sermin Yesilada
Philanthropy Mapping, Tina Wong
Framing Experience, Grace Aaraj and Charley Danner
Translucent Outreach, Wilfredo Sanchez
Visual Permeability, Srivarshini Balaji and Timothy Niou
Integrative Filter, Oliver Brandt and Hanna Lirman
Cognitive Exposure, Haley Blanco and Jenna Pairolero
Acoustic Interweaving, Eli Rosenwasser and Henry Smith

Link:

Place Branding of Public Service pdf available here.

http://placebrandingofpublicspace.wordpress.com/2013/11/03/north-park-blocks-installation-2/