CIVICGIZMO
TEAM: Aimilios Davlantis Lo (Greek) – Sam Willem Koopman (Australian) – Celine Park (Korean) – Cooper Union, New York
On cross Bronx expressway
program
This grouping of dwelling, workspace/shop and public square, I suppose, will be beneficial for the neighborhood as it connects locals ( assuming the workspace is made visible from the square ) with the process of creation; a practice I think is inherently benevolent and could begin to forge a new and locally authored culture for the place.
a thesis
The intimate existential condition of making becomes a civic condition. It becomes a civic condition through enabling all constituents of the neighborhood to observe and partake in the process of making. The process of making however not being just the making, but those things that makers must do in a certain way prior to producing anything of meaning – makers eat, sleep, and think in a certain way. These activities too should become a point of civic engagement and, in part, I suppose this can be achieved by positioning them behind a façade, which is transparent and operable, rather than one which is opaque and inoperable.