A1: 168 Hour Urban Intervention

Design an intervention that affects others in a positive way.

due in-class on Monday, January 30th, 2012, at 4pm

Design an intervention that affects others in a positive way. This first assignment is purposefully simple, introducing students to the concepts of and relationships between design, urban space, and the social. We will continue to explore these concepts over the course of this semester, building on the intricacies and complexities of these issues.

LEARNING GOALS

Develop Collaboration Skills: For this assignment, you will be working as a group to design, implement, record, and communicate your urban intervention. Learning to engage ideas that are not necessarily your own in a passionate and productive fashion is an invaluable skill for all designers.

Building Realities: This intervention asks students to face the difficulties and realities of constructing in the public realm. Where can an intervention take root? What materials, tools, etc. are necessary to facilitate the intervention’s implementation and temporal duration? How does craft come into play? Consider the cohesiveness of your intervention’s craft and assembly.

Understanding Purpose, Users, Impact: What does it mean to construct something that’s explicitly meant to perform a service for people? Is this act different from any other type of architecture? Define the service or purpose of your intervention, the users, and the social impact its aiming to provide. 

Represent and Communicate your Intent Effectively: Document your project in an effective manner to convey ideas, intentions, uses, happy accidents, etc. How do certain representation techniques convey certain concepts? 

GUIDELINES

+ Intervention must be physical. You must add material/matter to the urban condition. (Hypothetical / theoretical interventions are not allowed)  

+ Intervention must be documented as having made a positive effect on an existing condition. How do you measure effect? 

+ Due to gorilla nature of this project, intervention may be temporary / fleeting.

+Potential goal (extra credit!): Include a pedagogical element: Intervention teaches something, engages occupants/users/public through an educational element.

REQUIREMENTS
At minimum you should provide architectural drawings (plans, sections/elevations, perspectives, axons) on (2 minimum) 11x17 pages. Also include process/design sketches, photos, videos, 3d models, etc.

Links

http://www.designcorps.org/

http://encoreheureux.org/
http://www.olafureliasson.net/works.html
More images of interventions


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