Furnish It, With Pieces

3 units

Public space is a key constituent that determines the character of a neighborhood and a city. It is embedded the urban fabric and it can mediate the relationship between people and their particular surrounding landscape. Urban furniture and hardscape can play an important role in offering a wide range of uses for public spaces. The design of such pieces affects the way people live and experience a particular environment. The ultimate goal of this course is to design, fabricate and install a set of repeatable units to equip a vacant urban lot in order to offer opportunities for social interaction. The seminar focusses on the in-depth understanding and development of ideas based on the technical, experiential and aesthetic exploration of one material: concrete, into one specific application: urban furniture. This seminar builds up on the scope of the Creative Activity Research Grant awarded by the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts where 5 porous concrete pavers were designed for a vacant plot in North St. Louis. The challenges are to adapt the given pavers to a new site condition and to propose new urban furniture made out of concrete. It involves the construction of pieces able to equip a gathering space as well as sidewalks that can offer local residents the opportunity to interact with others. This provides not only aesthetic appeal to the residents and visitors, but also allows the possibility of implementing an actual project in an abandon plot in Old North. We will enrich the community with a wide range of training opportunities as each step in the process of making the plaza will be used for teaching purposes, from making pavers and other pieces, to salvaging, reusing or repurposing recycled material. Students are asked to design and build concrete urban furniture necessary for the gathering area. The pieces can encompass a wide range of uses: chair and benches, tables, raised beds, planters, litterbins, modular fencing and mobility-related pieces such as bike racks, bollards and car stoppers. This is an opportunity for hands-on experience. These pieces have to consider the limitations of the material in terms of strength, weight, size, etc.; learning about the material itself as well as the act of construction, assemblage and mass production, which will include methods and technology, ranging from tools to molds. The formwork for the concrete pieces will be built through a process of CNC milling and rubber molds or vacuum formed plastic. The challenges are to define environmentally sensitive strategies for problem solving, conceptual development and poetic expression at both levels of the design process, conceptual and real. Sustainable principles such as the use of recycled materials as an aggregate in the concrete mix will be an important consideration. Construction is the ultimate goal of this class. We will be working in collaboration with Anova, a local manufacturing company dedicated to the design and production of site furnishings. Anova will provide some materials and bring their expertise to the project.