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
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.
@ Room Service and other locations along the Gordon Square Arts District in the Detroit Shoreway Neighborhood.
Shopping event for local art and other creations accompanied by live music, good food and parties at Happy Dog.
The MADE IN THE 216 event was created by ROOM SERVICE owner Danielle DeBoe to highlight just how many talented designers are choosing to STAY and build their businesses in CLEVELAND; And to underscore their high level of talent by merchandising the Cleveland-made designs seamlessly amongst the items purchased by NYC, LONDON, LA, SAN FRANCISCO and PARIS-based designers.There are no ‘booths’ or traditional craft/trade show set ups that differentiate the designers’ wares.They are integrated in the same creative, narrative-driven way that RS merchandises their products year round.
The other thing that makes this show different is the diversity of the products being offered at the show.The show features a wide weft of creations from menswear, jewelry, tshirts, and personal accessories to stationary, photography, screenprints, household goods, furniture and music. These Cleveland-based creators represent all levels of entrepreneurship, from the craft circuit, to etsy shops, to international sales….all people who have chosen to stay and build their business in the 216 as opposed to leaving for bigger cities…THIS is something I think worth celebrating.
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.
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.
Thank you to everyone that came out to Designerosa! All of us at the CUDC had a great time and we’re really glad to have met so many new people. We especially want to thank Heelsplitter, the amazing bluegrass band that travels to all their shows by bike, Greg Priddy, Indy and Greg Peckham for the miniature ponies (Cinnamon and Doodle), and Lois Moss from Walk + Roll Cleveland for bringing everyone together for Transportainment.
We’d also like to thank Kelly from KRA photography for taking the brilliant photographs shown below. You can see the entire Designerosa photo set and order prints at her client lounge, just type in “walkroll” as the password.
The new Pop Up City book we released at the event should be available on Amazon soon, but in the meantime, please visit our Shrinking Cities Institute website to order a copy.
The CUDC’s Pop Up City initiative, Arts Collinwood and other Cleveland arts organizations were highlighted in a recent Wall Street Journal article about artist communities developing in blighted neighborhoods. Although there’s nothing new about artists moving into low-rent areas, the recent foreclosure crisis is motivating communities to increase incentives for artists:
Drawn by available spaces and cheap rents, artists are filling in some of the neighborhoods being emptied by foreclosures. City officials and community groups seeking ways to stop the rash of vacancies are offering them incentives to move in, from low rents and mortgages to creative control over renovation projects.
Some of the local organizations mentioned in the article include:
Pick up a copy of our new publication! When we get smarter, we’ll put a little PayPal icon somewhere around here so that you can buy our stuff instantly! The possibilities are endless! Until then, you can pick a book up at the CUDC office (currently above the Winking Lizard on Prospect/Huron downtown) or at CUDC events.
Last week Marc Lefkowitz, blog author extraordinaire for Green City Blue Lake, published a great post about Pop Up City and the Urban Design Center’s efforts to ignite (not literally) vacant spaces in Cleveland.
In addition to giving our new publication, Pop Up City, a congenial review (”The essay and book is not only a fascinating read, it’s filled with eye candy”), Marc brought up some good points. He asked towards the end of the post:
“Will those seeds grow to inspire some Temporary Users to leave the protective circle of the CUDC?“
In other words, he’s asking whether the Cleveland Urban Design Center’s Pop Up temporary events will inspire other groups and individuals around the city to start temporary uses of their own in otherwise abandoned lots.
For anyone out there who is reading this, we would love to hear back from you. Leave a comment and let us know about your experiences, ideas, and events that were/are all about temporary uses of vacant spaces.
And for anyone who is interested in starting a temporary event or use of a vacant space in Cleveland, there is a handy brochure in the back of the recent Pop Up City publication titled “Temporary Use Advice & Contacts”. It lets you know what kinds of permits you might need to get in order to use a space, and it’s also chock-full of advice from how to get sponsors to how many Port-O-Potties you may need. So, if you haven’t already, pick up a book and start igniting (please, not literally) Cleveland!
The Pop Up City 
Art installation at 
