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SOFTlab

SOFTlab

New York, NY

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Pratt GAUD Exhibition 2013

Pratt Institute's Graduate Architecture & Urban Design exhibition of student work has been curated, designed, and fabricated by a group of students in a course taught by Michael Szivos for the past 6 years. This year Michael along with Carrie McKnelly worked with a group of students to produce a large scale installation in the Hazel and Robert H. Siegel Gallery. Each year the course attempts to produce an installation that explores digital fabrication methods as while showcasing the previous year's student work. The opening of the exhibition coincides with In Process, the annual publication of student work. The curatorial component of the exhibition is meant to contrast the more traditional way of indexing the work through In Process.

This year's exhibition grouped the work into clusters based on the type of project, where it was located, how it was conceived, and by semester. The projects from Spring 2012 to Fall 2012 were arranged in a simple three dimensional grid based on the above qualities. This grid was then dynamically adjusted into clusters around four qualities of the work. Each project was then used to generate a cell. This provided a cloud like cell structure that looked like it was grown rather than organized. The underside of this hanging structure was clad with color coded images of the student work. The clad "under belly" creates a solid landscape of images at various angles that visitors explored much like a cave, finding images in crevices as they walked around each cluster. The bottom appeared continuous and solid, while the structure above was very porous to allow for the ceiling light to still penetrate into the gallery.

The hanging installation was made of over 250 unique cells. These were each custom laser cut, assembled, and clad with custom cut images. The structure is exceptional light while still being very strong and taking up large volume. Much like a sponge and in many ways an architecture students education; it relies on redundancy, many connections, complexity, and irregularity to produce an overall structure that is light, nimble, unique, but still open in its ability to grow.

 
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Status: Built
Location: Brooklyn, NY, US
Firm Role: Professor
Additional Credits: Design Team : Maryam Delshad, Maurizio Huaylla, Sira Kiatnum, Taesoo Kim, Trey Lindsay, Katia Loizou, Dong Gyum Park, Ally Speir, Jenna Steinbeck, Darion Washington, Nick Wright, Matiss Zemitis

Photos: Alan Tansey