Archinect - The Dirty South

What is the Image of Home in the Dirty South?

2013-02-15T13:39:00-05:00

For her project in the Dirty South Studio, Kasia Zycinska deconstructed the accommodations section of our Atlanta guidebook, exploring the idea of domestic life of the city and how Atlantans depict themselves to the world. Freya Schlemmer and Cynthia Smith interview Kasia about Atlanta's average resident and her creation of the "average" house.

Freya Schlemmer: There are millions of houses in Atlanta. How did you choose which ones to examine?

Kasia Zycinska: I started my investigation by exploring the city's housing through the lens of AIRBNB.com, a website that offers an alternative to hotels, by featuring posts of local residents who provide tourists with bed-and-breakfast-like accommodations. Along the way, the scope of the research grew to include other homes that have been publicized in some way: Atlanta historic homes featured in the “AIA Guidebook to Atlanta,” as well as contemporary houses that have been a part of the Modern Atlanta Home Tour.

Cynthia Smith: So,...

What Does Aldo Rossi Have To Do With Atlanta Hip-Hop?

2013-01-30T16:56:00-05:00

For her project in the Dirty South Studio, Liz Teston looked at the world of hip-hop in relation to city of Atlanta. Her explorations began with mapping the locations described in a number of songs from local rap legends. Freya Schlemmer and Cynthia Smith interview Liz about Atlanta's musical history and her construction of a Rossi hut in front of JJ's Rib Shack.

Cynthia Smith: What made you choose hip-hop as a theme unique to Atlanta?

LT: What could be more symbolic of Atlanta than hip-hop music? Today, the city is a major player in American Hip-Hop culture. Beginning in the early 1990’s, southern rap was considered an outlier, distinct from the intellectual lyrics of New York hip-hop and the gansta rap rhymes from California. While Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. were battling with Public Enemy and Wu-Tang Clan in east coast/ west coast rap battle, Dirty South rappers like Outkast and Goodie Mob established their footing on the music scene. Their choice of place-sp...

2012 Fall Semester Review

2012-12-26T09:40:00-05:00

What takes place in Atlanta's underbelly? You might know a little bit of the dark side of our fair city, but there are a multitude of overlooked phenomena hidden here. Beginning with the idea of a guidebook, TVSDesign Distinguished Studio Critic Jennifer Bonner mastheaded 14 graduate students in a studio titled the "Dirty South," which had the goal of looking at this city through the filter of the rap ideology of east coast/ west coast/ dirty south and translating this to the realm of architecture. Through an intensive process, the students eked out a number of oddities particular to Atlanta to formulate a new guide to the city, which will be published later this spring.

This fall, each student identified a unique element of the city that they developed to propose an architectural problem and stance. Projects range from an addition to JJ's Rib Shack on Campbellton Road as an homage to Hip Hop; "Portmanteau": an aggregation of the world's busiest airport and the atriums made fam...