Filed under: Crisis City
As our year-long architecture theses transitions from Thesis Prep (research) to simply Thesis (design), the Crisis City group prepares for a new and final semester. As is typical between semesters at Syracuse’s School of Architecture, studios are reshuffled and students move into a new studio with new professors. In the case of Crisis City, our studio moved only 14 feet, albeit in section, moving from the basement across from the cafe to the 1st Floor, room 126, directly above.
Seen as an opportunity, this transition has afforded us the ability to spatially and performatively re-plan our studio, hoping to further promote collaborative conversations between each group member’s thesis. With quasi-revolutionary undertones, we took down the walls (pin-up dividers) that typically separate each desk, re-purposed them as a pin-up/book shelf at the bottom right of the above photo, and pushed 1o desks together, one for each respective member, forming a single “mega-desk” that is 6 x 25 feet.
Beyond symbolism, the single desk will greater contribute to the development of 10 architectural thesis through an informal dialectical cross-pollination due to proximity, and the new single centralized desk and pin-up area provides the group with a space to meet in large format amongst our thesis work. The first such meeting occurred last Friday January 21. Although there were several scheduling conflicts, a turn-out of 7 students, and 6 faculty members, allowed for a healthy discussion of Crisis City’s process and product. The meeting began with each student updating the professors of their thesis work in a brief 2 page graphic and text summary. Following these introductions, the students and the faculty began a more specific discussion focused on the process the group should employ as it aims to conclude thesis with an exhibition of group-work.
Questions Raised at Friday January 21 Meeting :
- “Exhibition or Exhibition of student Work”:
A question most clearly articulated by Prof. Lonsway, are we making an exhibit, or are we exhibiting our work, the distinction here is one of curation. Does Crisis City merely pin-up each of its individual theses in proximity, allowing viewers to construct their own meanings, or is our exhibition curated by an idea, purpose, or intended outcome? Furthermore, while it is clear that the later is the most time/effort intensive, it is unclear to what extent it can be achieved. Limited by a time period of only 3 months (Crisis City will likely stop 10-14 days before juries to finalize the exhibition), our curation would have to be on-going, as we would be simultaneously developing architectural proposals for our individual theses and a group thesis, conveyed through a carefully edited and formatted exhibition. Due to our groups restraints, a reasonable balance between these two modes of exhibiting will need to form, however it was generally agreed that the sooner the group could begin developing a curatorial intention, the better.
- To what extent can Crisis City develop a framework/matrix?
Elaborated by Prof. Brown, much of the meetings attention was given to what structured processes, shared modes of thinking/argument, and project formatting needed to occur for an exhibition or exhibition of student work to be purposeful and/or construct/participate with a larger architectural/intellectual discourse. The hope is that an agreed framework/matrix from the onset of the semester would allow each project to develop in concert by filling in the framework, allowing a collective discourse to emerge by the completion of individual projects. Ideas for such a discourse included: crisis or “tensions of contemporary modernization” as suggested by Prof. Massey, a thesis-altering academic agenda about the legacy of architectural production and critique, or pluralism and modes of architectural cross-pollination. Other possibilities may be discovered, however, it was clear that the group needed to be actively searching out and testing frameworks as process and product. At similar future meetings we will present our thesis work through the most developed or latest framework and our subsequent group discussion would be one of curitorial review.
- Crisis City’s Publicness?
Prompted by the groups new single studio desk and pin-up space, the question arose as to how public the groups work would be going forward. It was noted by most of the meetings participants that the group’s strongest legacy so far was the gesture of thesis work-made-public via the blogs. Given a recent decrease in blogging, would blogging become requisite? Could a new single studio space allow an up-dated pin-up wall for recent thesis work? Could this pin-up wall also some how display Crisis-City’s process or framework, and thus act as a test ground for exhibition?
Only an hour long, the meeting brought up some key questions, but also presented clear opportunities. Generally the conclusions were optimistic, but demanded immediacy. Therefore, in the spirit of immediate action, the attending Crisis City members began a further alteration of the studio space, placing a group calendar at the entry and dividing the pin-up space into an area for updating individual work, and for group diagramming, pin-up, and cumulative graphic discussion, in the form of a blank paper-covered wall.
The spontaneous post-meeting act of transforming the pin-up space suggest a new model in which the group acts at any moment out of the energy of a present majority. As such Crisis City becomes more open, more malleable, but simultaneously becomes more progressive and more responsive.
Around the table from front left: Ted Brown, Gabe Jewell-Vitale, Brendan Moran, Brian Lonsway, Anda French, Gabriella Morrone, Francisco Sanin, and James Conley.
I will continue working on the content for my thesis prep final this Tuesday 11:00-12:00 (4th Floor Atrium, East), but below is technically my final book submission. I anticipate I will print out another ‘final’ book for the review, filling out some more of the pages, adding more details, and editing the text more thoroughly. You can see my previous book submission here.
Also, below are some photos from our last voluntary Crisis City meeting in which we each presented our projects to eachother and engaged in a group critiuque. This is likely to be the model that we follow next semester as we begin ‘designing’ our proposed projects.
Filed under: videos | Tags: Food, Food Distribution Centers, Hunts Point, New York City, Project for Public Spaces, video
Well its not really new (yet), but as part of a first time 1 million dollar marketing campaign culminating in the recent launch of a new website, New York City’s Hunt’s Point Terminal Market has officially been (re)branded. Announced earlier last month, the wholesale market’s campaign will attempt to reintroduce and re-frame the market to the city, to the region, and to the world.
The timing of this campaign comes as no surprise as the wholesale market’s facilities and its business have been deteriorating ever since it moved to Hunt’s Point after abandoning Washington Market (previously on the former World Trade Center site) in 1962. While the current spacious 60 acre site in the south Bronx has granted the market larger facilities, quicker access to regional and global transportation networks, and greater volumes of produce exchange, the siting of the market in a poor and industrial neighborhood at the cities hinterlands has possibly led to a loss of public visibility and support.
With the exception of a few modest news clips around holiday feast seasons, the only real press the market has ever gotten was the uncovering of a decade-long fraud scandal where USDA inspectors were being bribed to cheat the farmers supplying the market.
In addition to this bad press the market has been requesting funding to go ahead with facilities improvement that have yet to be granted by city (which leases the market property) state, or federal governments. Things have gotten so bad that as recently as 2008, there was speculation that the market might leave the city and reestablish itself in New Jersey. The nearly 50 year-old facility is congested, out of date, and struggles to comply with modern cold-chain standards. Wholesale fresh food markets, such as Hunt’s Point, have been under pressure for decades as expanding supermarket and hypermarket corporations such as Tesco, Walmart, and Kroger have began dominating the food system and rapidly consolidating, innovating, and automating the distribution process. In addition to competition from vertically integrated supermarkets, the new soon to open 700,000 sq. ft. state-of-the-art Philadelphia Wholesale Produce Market (for photos see this earlier post) is expected to further compete with Hunt’s Point for business. Clearly the pressure is on, and for now this marketing campaign is the market’s most achievable answer.
Website screenshot:
The “New” Hunts Point Produce Market and My Thesis
From the beginning of my thesis research Hunts Point has always been a potential site. Although I have delayed detailed site analysis, the site has been the door into my understanding of fresh food logistics. When I first discovered it in a post on Mexico City’s produce market in Nicola Twilley’s blog edible geography, I was amazed that such a massive and essential facility in the daily life of New York City could exist unnoticed by its citizens… this unnoticing is of course the work of logistics (see this earlier post). Upon further research over the summer it was evident that the market’s blurred public/private condition has led to poor funding and eventual facility deterioration. Given my architectural knowledge of the historic role of public market buildings in civic life, I could not help but wonder how this market plays a role in that lineage. When did the market become a neglected logistical space? What caused this recent transition and what futures might it hypothesize.
I suppose my innitial instincts were not misplaced. Indeed Hunt’s Point has an image problem (for better or worse image is half of the architectural problem), and if it is going to survive and prosper along with the fresh food system of New York, it needs revamping. While much of this revamping will occur through policy and economics, ultimately the built facilities that these forces are manifested in will play a critical role in the markets evolution and success.
Although I have been expecting the Hunts Point Produce Market’s new marketing campaign for some time, I am still not entirely sure how to react to it in the context of my project. Since the marketing campaign calls upon the citizens of New York City (the public) and the farmers and produce distributors from around the world to come out to the market, I wonder how a facility that was not designed to engage the public will perform. Perhaps this focuses my thesis on further analysis of the differences between public architecture and logistical architecture, spaces designed for people and spaces designed for commodities.
A more pessimistic response to the marketing campaign would be to say the whistle has been blown… here I have been sitting on one of New York City’s best kept secrets and now its out. In addition to the new website, commercials advertising the market will be played on cable throughout the tri-state area. Soon most New Yorker’s will at least know of Hunt’s Point’s existence. Since I will not be fully analyzing the Hunt’s Point site until next semester, I could take the stance that I showed up late to the party and thus the site has less to offer… less to expose. I am leaning towards the former.
Regardless of whether my eventual design project looks to expose Hunts Point’s role in New York City’s food system, or whether it attempts to somehow resolve some of the conflicting issues of landscape and building on the site, for now I certainly appreciate the surge of press and video accompanying this new marketing campaign.
Video: 1
This first promotional video created by Erik West for the marketing campaign is by far my favorite. Upbeat and simply visual it certainly glorifies the logistical spectacle of the market. The video also focuses on a critical point… time and programming. Much of the hustle and bustle of logistics takes place in the early morning hours. While goods are moved throughout the day, the early morning peak is intended to allow for stores and restaurants to be stocked throughout the day.
Video: 2
This second promotional video by Erik West focuses more on the perspective of retailers who buy their product (fruits and vegetables) from Hunts Point.
Video: 3
The third promotional video is more lengthy and comprehensive with narration by the market’s new TV spokesperson Tony Tantillo.
When I first saw this video at Fast Company Design, I was quite surprised to see that the video and the subsequent ‘Real Food Movement‘ is actually funded and run by the Canadian sect of Hellmann’s (yes the mayonnaise company). To be honest, while I cannot not comment on Hellmann’s mayonnaise’s status as sustainable or ‘real food’ I can certainly say they are giving justice and impressive visibility to the local/sustainable/healthy food movement.
While the import/export ratios presented in the video are a little more drastic than America’s (Canada has a shorter growing season and has no California or Florida) generally the arguments made are trans-national. I guess there should be no surprise that a campaign such as this might come to fruition in a country like Canada. While concerns revolving climate change, economics, and local food sovereignty in the face of global food crises are not unique to Canada, they are of more immediate concern. As I already alluded to, the developed countries of the north, many parts of the US, but also countries like the British Isles, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland, have become particularly reliant on certain fruit and vegetable imports. If global food trade were to collapse or be temporarily paused within days these countries would run out of many fresh fruits and vegetables. It is not impossible to grow adequate amounts of food in these places, but given there post-agrarian economies, these countries have traded the difficulties of food production for the convenience of the global food system. Increasingly this convenience is being viewed as a risky dependence. Localism emerges as a way of mediating this dependence.
While farmer-consumer relationships are mentioned in this video (one of the typical accolades of localism), local food is being emphasized in this video primarily as a political and economic force. As such, ‘Eat Canadian’ is a form of nationalism as much as a form of localism… sort of a ‘for us, by us’ economic model. But to some extent the value in precisely differentiating between nationalism, regionalism, and localism is questionable. The scales of food systems certainly matter but they also have to be taken on a case by case basis. If you live in Toronto and you buy wine from British Columbia (2000 miles) versus wine from the Finger Lakes (200 miles) in the United States, then ‘eating Canadian’ is clearly a decision driven by nationalist ideals not local (or perhaps BC wine is just better?).
Eating local will not save the world, but it is a start. A definition of local as a particular economic exchange, a particular distance, a particular heritage is not the point. If local is to be a solution to food crises, hunger, and climate change it is something we will have to each define for ourselves. Executed through captivating graphics, here’s one such opinion.
Enjoy the show…
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Food, Food Distribution Centers, Infrastructure, Markets, NAPMM, Project for Public Spaces
With thanks to Ben Vitale of the Central New York Regional Market:
I wanted to record a synopsis of my experience at the National Association of Produce Market Managers (NAPMM) Conference I just returned from in Philadelphia (more posts on this to come soon). Quickly the highlights of the conference included:
1) Meeting produce market managers from all over the country who collectively help manage the food chain that provides fresh produce for a majority of North America
2) Touring the nearly completed Philadelphia Wholesale Produce Market (PWPM), a state-of-the-art 700,000 sq ft and $218,500,000 wholesale distribution center that will move from its previous Philadelphia location to this new mega-building.
3) Observing conversations amongst the various managers about the variety of market facilities they manages (architecture/operations), the major issues facing these markets, and their role in the food chain.
4) Participating in round-table discussions between NAPMM members, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Project for Public Spaces (PPS), the Wallace Center, and various other interested parties, about the existing and emergent possibilities within food markets to develop what the USDA and PPS are calling ’food hubs.’ These facilities are interested in ”not only selling a wide variety of healthy foods, including local produce, but also creating a place for community-centered activities to take place like healthy clinics and day care centers.’
Given the thesis of this blog, this conference easily holds the spot most essential resource I have yet to uncover. Although it comes a few weeks late in the thesis schedule this surge of information and future contact opportunities will prove to be incredibly helpful in my explorations of the mysterious and complex architectures of the food chain.
A few photos below, much more to follow soon!
In the meantime imagine a facility, a single space, a giant refrigerator that has a bigger building foot print than all three of Philadelphia’s pro-sport stadiums, cost less than 1 of them, employees more people, and generates more income annually for the local economy. I guess I am wondering how these facilities havent entertained or captured and kept our attention. That being said perhaps now they can.
Google Earth image of the Philadelphia Wholesale Produce Market
View of the market's 1300 foot-long central concourse
View back to Philadelphia from a market window
Photo from the floor of the central concourse
NAPMM members touring the cooled storage rooms
Exterior view of the 'backside" docking facades of the market
Workshop sessions with NAPMM, USDA, PPS, and the Wallace Center.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Today we had our first meeting with all 10 Crisis City thesis students as well as all 5 of our Syracuse School of Architecture faculty (well except 1 due to sickness). This was our first of 3 primary reviews in the first semester of thesis. With some coordination all 10 of us presented our views on crisis as well as presented the initial developments of our thesis work. We followed an elaborated pecha-kucha style presentation were we all 10 of us in a row presented our work in about 5 minutes. Generally speaking the work was well received by the faculty as well as the group of students. The last few days charette produced some successful and provocative early analysis and diagramming.
Luckily despite these individual project presentations the focus of our discussions with the faculty were the academic/intellectual agendas and potentials yet to be fully engaged by our thesis coalition. While the individually presented projects overlapped on many issues and shared a general “expression of dissatisfaction” towards the capitalist/global/ and political institutions of our contemporary world, we discussed that there should not be a focus on agreement of content or ethics, but rather an agreement on process and resolutions (like the UN model). The 10 students will be meeting soon to respond to our co-critics opinions yet in the meantime our individual theses drive on.
Below is a pdf of my individual project presentation. The presentations of my colleagues can be found on their respective blogs, as listed on the blogroll or as linked through the Crisis City homepage.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Farms, Food, Food Distribution Centers, Infrastructure
While foodscapes such as thisWisconsin dairy farm still exist and are still productive this is not the landscape feeding urban society. The forces of modernity and industrialization that have created our burgeoning population have also responded for our need for exponentially more food. The modern city made of modern men rely on modern foodscapes for further development, yet we are also dependent on their disappearance. Food has been removed to urban hinterlands or cloaked in corrugated mega-box warehouses, removed from our daily lives to avoid disruption, ensure control. Fundamentally urban, extreme, but essential, these are the spaces of modern food:
Today and tomorrow Syracuse University’s School of Architecture will be hosting Formerly Urban: Projecting Rust Belt Urban Futures.
A two-day conference on the benefits of creating urbanity in weak-market cities gathers twenty-one international experts in architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design and planning, policy, finance, economics, and real estate development. Participants share strategies for cities whose urban character has devolved radically due to economic, demographic, and physical changecities that are now considered “formerly urban.” “Formerly Urban” is supported by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and the Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation, with additional support provided by the Central New York Community Foundation. The symposium is free and open to the public. Pre-registration not required.
Crisis City, a thesis collaborative here at Syracuse University will be closely attending the conference and writing various posts related to the various conference sessions and the crises and opportunities in America’s Rust Belt cities.
The Wednesday October 13th Session Participants include:
Session One: Approaches to Practice, 1:30-3:15
Moderator: Anne Munly, Professor, Syracuse Architecture; Partner, Munly Brown Studio
Darren Petrucci, Professor and Director, Herberger Institute School of Architecture + Landscape Architecture, Arizona State University; Principal and Founder, A-I-R[Architecture-Infrastructure-Research] Inc.
Jane Wolff, Associate Professor and Director, Master of Landscape Architecture Program, Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, the University of Toronto
McLain Clutter, Assistant Professor, A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan
Mark Robbins, Professor and Dean, Syracuse University School of Architecture
Session Two: Shaping Neighborhoods and Regions, 3:30-5:15
Moderator: Brian Lonsway, Associate Professor, Syracuse Architecture
Hunter Morrison, Director, Office of Campus Planning and Community Partnerships, Youngstown State University
Damon Rich, Urban Designer, City of Newark; Founder, Center for Urban Pedagogy
Don Mitchell, Distinguished Professor, Department of Geography, Syracuse University
Toni L. Griffin, Founder, Urban Planning & Design for the American City; Adjunct Associate Professor, Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Keynote Address, 5:30-6:30
Adriaan Geuze: Dutch landscape architect and co-founder of West 8 Urban Design & Landscape Architecture
The Thursday October 14th Session Participants include:
Session Three: Urbanity without Density, 9:00-10:50
Moderator: Mark Linder, Associate Professor, Syracuse Architecture; Principal, CLEAR
Roger Sherman, Principal and Founder, Roger Sherman Architecture + Urban Design; Adjunct Associate Professor and Co-Director at cityLAB, UCLA Architecture and Urban Design
Jonathan Marvel, Principal and Co-Founder, Rogers Marvel Architects
Edward Mitchell, Principal, Edward Mitchell Architects; Assistant Professor, Yale University School of Architecture
Andrew Zago, Founder and Principal, Zago Architecture; Design Faculty, Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc)
Session 4: The Potentials of Landscape, 11:00-12:45
Moderator: Theodore Brown, Professor, Syracuse Architecture, Partner, Munly Brown Studio
Charles Waldheim, Professor and Chair, Department of Landscape Architecture, Harvard Graduate School of Design
Eelco Hooftman, President and Founder, Common Ground Eelco Hooftman, Partner and Co-Founder, GROSS. MAX. landscape architects
Sébastien Marot, PhD, Professor of History and Theory, École d’Architecture de la Ville et des Territoires
Julia Czerniak, Associate Professor and Director, UPSTATE: at Syracuse Architecture; Founding Principal, CLEAR
Session 5: Financing Innovative Design in Weak Markets, 1:45-3:00
Moderator: James F. Lima, Partner, HR&A Advisors, Inc.
Marc Norman, Vice President, Deutsche Bank Community Development Finance Group
Rosanne Haggerty, President and Founder, Common Ground
Mark Willis, Resident Research Fellow, Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, New York University
*A book based on the “Formerly Urban” conference will be published in spring 2012 through a collaboration of Syracuse Architecture and Princeton Architectural Press , funded in part by the Rockefeller Foundation. The “Formerly Urban” conference is supported by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and the Deutsche Bank Foundation, with additional support provided by the Central New York Community Foundation. The conference is free and open to the public.
