Kent State University’s Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative/Pop Up City hosts Martin Papcun (Prague, Czech Republic) as he presents his newest large-scale, site-specific installation at 3601 Siam Road in Ohio City.
The artist, along with construction partners American Tank Fabricating and Affordable Demolition & Hauling Inc., will slice into the walls of a house and turn them inside out to reveal the interior of the home. The installation, House, turned inside out, a massive, yet intricate deconstruction, will be open to the public for one month.
The project is funded by a grant from CEC ArtsLink New York. For more information, email: info@popupcity.com
Early in the morning on Saturday, October 3rd, Edgewater Beach became the venue for a boat race meant to bring awareness to the exorbitant amount of plastic that makes its way to the world’s lakes and oceans. Led by Cathi Lehn of the Biodiversity Alliance and Dr. Marcus Eriksen of the California-based Algalita Marine Research Foundation, teams from throughout Cuyahoga County arrived with their self-made boats. The eleven small boats, constructed entirely from plastic bottles and otherwise discarded objects, were carefully carried down by the teams to the water’s edge of Lake Erie. The large crowd watched nervously as the teams pushed their crafts onto the water and the selected team members got on board. Would their boats even float?
This question was certainly on the mind of the LoveCraft’s team, comprised of members from the Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative, the Green City Blue Lake Institute and Environmental Health Watch. In a boat building workshop the week before, Dr. Eriksen had given the rule of thumb, “One two-liter bottle will support one kilogram.” But did he then say to use enough bottles for double the weight or was that just because of the metric system? Well, the team would find out when they hit the water.
As the brave skippers, Marc Lefkowitz and Mandy Metcalf, boarded the LoveCraft, the team was surprised by how little their recycled matress framed rig sunk in the water. The additional pontoons made from discarded wildberry sno cone syrup bottles must have done the trick! Now the LoveCrafters would have to face the 300 feet of Lake Erie out to the marker canoe, make the turn around it, and paddle back to shore against the prevailing wind. They would also have to watch out for the favored boat that day; a sleak two pontoon vessel covered in saran wrap designed by Medina high school students.
The LoveCraft held her own as the skippers paddled furiously to the shoreline, but was just edged out of third place by another Medina craft skippered by two students wearing batman and robin costumes. Maybe the extra pontoons could have been placed closer to the edge in order to make a more hydrodynamic design? Maybe they weren’t needed at all? When trying to determine the right balance of plastic needed, it might be better to favor on the side of simply using less.
For more info on what can be done to combat the plastic plague and for more photos of the regatta, visit the GreenCityBlueLake Institute blog. For behind the scenes shots of the crafting of the LoveCraft, visit our CUDC Flickr stream.
What if the Detroit-Superior Bridge lower level became a public space? How would you use it? Now is your chance to see it happen.
1. Visit www.BridgeProjectVote.com to share your thoughts on initial concepts developed by students involved in the Bridge Projectdesign[build] charrette. Leave your comments on the projects and begin a dialogue with the students. What ideas do you like? What would you like to see more details on? What new uses would you like to see included?
2. Share the link with co-workers, friends, family and smarter-than-average pets. The students would love to have your feedback so they can quickly develop and refine their projects. Only a few projects will be selected to be built full-scale on the bridge, so make your thoughts known!
3. Come to the public opening during the Bridge Project on Friday and Saturday September 25th (4pm-midnight) and 26th (noon-midnight) to experience the selected projects as built prototypes. Public input on the projects will continue during the two day bridge opening as people activate the spaces and students observe the interactions, then adjust the installations.
Oftentimes as designers the distance between conceptual plan and embodied user experience is too wide to be meaningful. The rapid prototyping concept for the Bridge Project charrette intends to collapse this distance and introduce user feedback earlier in the design process. The installations during the event should not be viewed as finished products, but rather as prototypes designed to engage and draw feedback from the future users of the space.
Many thanks to Jeff Schuler for constructing the drupal website for project voting: www.jeffschuler.net
Cleveland Executive Fellowship and Pop Up City transformed the old Leff Electric Building at 1163 E. 40th St. into an Electric Roller DiscoTech on August 28th. Here’s what went down:
It’s a disco roller rink (sort of) in the old Leff Electric Building at 1163 E. 40th Street. It’s an old industrial building with great views of the lake.
Friday, August 28th :: 7 - 10pm
Should be a fun time.
from senior planner Terry Schwarz, posted by marianne.
This video was made to promote the upcoming summit about creating a sustainable Cleveland by the year 2019. For more info on the summit from August 12-14, visit here.
Alberto Francini and Andreas Kipar are members of the team developing innovative plans for the expansion and greening of Milan. The plan includes major new green infrastructure for the city, integrated with new and redeveloped commercial and housing areas. This effort and many of the architectural projects resulting from it have become an important model for designers interested in the urban landscape of the 21st century.
Presented by Kent State University’s College of Architecture and Environmental Design and Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative, in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art.
FRIDAY July 10th, 6:00pm
MOCA [Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland] 8501 Carnegie Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44106, [216] 421.8671
parking available
The lecture is free and open to the public, but the Cleveland Playhouse will charge for parking. MOCA’s “There goes the Neighborhood” and other shows will be available for viewing by lecture-goers (www.mocacleveland.org)
After the lecture, go to Playhouse Square, where the Ingenuity Festival will be in full swing. At 8:20, Pecha Kucha begins. What’s Pecha Kucha? Visit http://www.pecha-kucha.org/cities/cleveland
Every year, graduate students at the CUDC take part in a community design charrette, which addresses the urban design needs of a particular site or neighborhood in Northeast Ohio. This year’s charrette will be part of the Bridge Project scheduled for September 25th and 26th.
During a typical charrette, students are asked to gather relevant data about the focus area in preparation for a community meeting where stakeholders and residents share their thoughts and desires for the neighborhood. The students then work along side CUDC staff to quickly develop design solutions and assemble presentations for the community. In years past, the student charrettes have focused on downtown Lakewood, the Jewish Community Federation site, the Howard Street corridor in Akron and Youngstown’s Oak Hill neighborhood.
The Pop Up City animation, made by Gauri Torgalkar and David Jurca from the CUDC, was announced today as a winner of MOCA Cleveland’s Neighborhood Watch Video Competition! A narrative of a proposed development on the port site made by KSU graduate student Sukant Bhatnagar was also selected as one of the eight winning video shorts. The films will be screened in the Commons Area at MOCA throughout the summer 2009 season.
The video competition is a part of MOCA’s new exhibit, There Goes the Neighborhood, whichopens this Friday, June 5th with an artist gallery talk from 6-7pm and opening reception until 10pm. The exhibit runs from June 5th through August 16th.
This is a map of Cleveland showing vacant sites (in red), existing parks (in dark green), and proposed parkland and greenspaces (in light green). The map was drawn by the Urban Design Center for Cleveland LandLab.
The Organizers of The 2009 BRIDGE PROJECT seek YOUR ideas!
The BRIDGE PROJECT—taking place September 25 and 26, 2009, at the Streetcar Level of the Detroit Superior Bridge—will be a Colossal Convening of local and regional artists who will showcase their work in one of this region’s most amazing and underused locations.
BRIDGE PROJECT organizers will showcase the work of approximately forty artists at this location and we invite you to submit a proposal to occupy one of these spaces – which span the entirety of the bridge (from the tunnels and catacombed spaces at the west side of this bridge, to the arched walkway of the span itself, to the large pillar decked area at the east side). We are looking for quality and diversity of form and media. (more…)
Congratulations to our very own Terry Schwarz for being awarded the 2009 Cleveland Arts Prize! Terry is senior planner at the CUDC and an adjunct professor at Kent State University.
Terry was awarded the artist prize in design for her work surrounding the Shrinking Cities Institute at the CUDC, which addresses local population decline. The multifaceted work of the Shrinking Cities Institute includes the Cleveland Land Lab, the Pop Up City! temporary use intiative and two editions of the Urban-Infill Journal.
The awards ceremony will be held Thursday, June 25th at the Hanna Theatre in Playhouse Square. Tickets are available by calling 216 321-0012 or by email at info@clevelandartsprize.org.
The Pop Up City 
