if my table was a boat

...made of fencing

A little over a week ago we made a 27 foot table for the dinner series at Open Satellite. One Pot is Micheal Hebb's experiment with the meal-event and place-making.  His idea is to create a narrative about fragmented and misunderstood places through the shared event of a simple meal.  This most recent event was the first of five dinners to take place in unconventional sites around Bellevue.  Special guests were asked to think of a significant site in Bellevue to host four upcoming dinners open to the public.

I leaped at the opportunity to design a table for this event even though the budget was a ridiculous 300 dollars.  It was to be iconic, nautical in spirit, collapsible, storable, large enough for 25 people, small enough for 6 and also suitable for a craft table. For $300. Umm yeah. 

I insisted it would be possible if we re-used the wood we had saved from Meiro Koizumi's exibit.  We imagined using the framing lumber, but Micheal fell in love with the faded cedar fencing that had served as the strawberry-shed siding.  At first this seemed impossible.

I thought hard.

We thought hard...

And we came up with a three-part structure with no fasteners: four hollow-core doors from Home Depot, blue paint, one left-over sheet of plywood from SUPERMODEL, cedar fencing (thank you Craig's List) and 10 metal clamps on sale at Harbor Freight.

And it worked!

And it fit in my Subaru.

And Mattew Stadler- founder of Publication Studio and quite possibly the most eloquent speaker ever, posted pictures of it on his blog even though the posts were about his books and I think the clamps annoyed him and I forgot a bag of compost-bound oyster shells in his bath tub.  But who cares.

It was awesome.

But the table was just the vessel.  The whole point of the event was a conversation, and Matthew's opening toast says it all.  He proposed we stop measuring our cities according to a European ideal; that we open ourselves to the unlikely experiences afforded by sprawling unruly places like Bellevue; that we look for opportunities in strip malls and parking lots.

He gave clarity to my inklings.  Is it really a coincidence that Bellevue is more diverse that Seattle...that we have had to travel here from Seattle to participate in good art?  Maybe strip-malls are quaint in their quaintlessness. Could a chain-restaurant be unique?   Can a public residency for artists -a gallery- be an epicenter for community?  Perhaps excessive planning and preservation make a place go stale... 

Codes and zoning don't create public life, people do- and people are affected by their surroundings.  The role of architecture and art then, is to create a vessel for community.  So how do you create a vessel that simultaneously reflects and steers existing activity...?

With a few doors, leftover plywood and some cedar fencing.

artificial freshness

I just read an interesting article in Edible Geography. The Anti-fridge discusses how the fridgerator has shaped the American experience of food and our perverse definition of freshness.  It made me think of last summer...we were eating mostly out of the garden and our fridge was empty.  The fridge is pretty empty now, but for a different reason...you are what you eat?

para llevar

Over the Christmas Holiday I rediscovered some neighborhoods in Denver. Santa Fe is now Denver's official arts district. Once lined with strip joints, liquor stores and factories, this rail-side boulevard now hosts the Museo de las Americas, the Denver Homesteading Building, tons of galleries, and an upcoming performing arts center. Along with this gentrification I noticed some colorful taco joints...vinyl seats, murals and wrought iron-esque grated windows. The food was a little on the greasy side, but the salsas were sabrosas and the horchata tops.


Excellent Mexican food has also moved into Seattle's industrial SODO. El Camión's vegetarian tacos are truly full of flavorful vegetables and the fish tacos distinguish it from the others. Complete with a picnic tent and foosball, El Camión also serves coke it a bottle. If you hang out under the heat-lamp and close your eyes, it's almost like being at Los Mariscos de Sandy in San Jose del Cabo.

fabrication station

I been gettin' cozy with the drill press people. Greg and I have spent the last week with ours heads down, preparing SUPERMODEL 2010. Now that we have resurfaced, I am eager to write about the process.

This is not the first exhibit I have worked on with Open Satellite, but it is the first I have engaged on multiple fronts. Needless to say there is a hell of a lot of work that goes into these productions! Much goes into coordination...lighting and administration. I have always had a huge amount of respect for craftspeople and this project reinforced my reverence- it is really difficult to earn a living making quality things in an inequitable free-trade economy. Busting out the exhibit also rekindled a little love for design/build, be it sometimes tedious. I hope this practical experience makes me a more thoughtful designer.

This blog is my journal and sketchbook, so I want to write down what I learned on this project. Taking notes helps me remember and although the lessons seem obvious now, this entry will serve as a good reminder once the experience is far behind me.
#1 People who know me will laugh at this epiphany, but yes, I need to learn not to sweat the small stuff.
#2 Price out all materials before you concede to what you think will fit the budget. Even if you are working with the experts- they may not understand the overall picture. Trust yourself and ask questions.
#3 Specify all the material details before handing over the order.
#4 Don't mess with your intuition- if it looks good and works well in the mock-up then don't tweak it...chances are you were on the first time.
#5 Context changes everything. Make big decisions in the space, because it will affect the presence of whatever you are building- small or large.