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More Photos from Opening Night — 10.16.08
11.12.08
Opening Night — 10.16.08
10.27.08
Recent News
10.27.08
A Village grows at DesignPhiladelphia
Green Scene: Pop-Up Neighborhood
City Paper: Outside the Box - Q& A with Brian Phillips
City Paper: Sudden Impact
At a Clean Break: Interface Studio Architects
A Clean Break: Philly Prefab Exhibit
A Clean Break: Modern Prefab Comes to Philadelphia
weeHouse arrived on the lot
10.01.08
A Clean Break featured in Architectural Record Online
09.26.08
On Heels of MoMA Show, a Prefab Exhibition Opening in Philly by Sebastian Howard
From October 17 to 30, a temporary prefab "neighborhood" in Philadelphia will offer an optimistic view of what a revitalized city might look like in the near future. A Clean Break, curated by Minima Gallery, will be a central event of DesignPhiladelphia, an annual series of lectures, studio tours, and exhibitions organized by the Design Center at Philadelphia University. Part of Minima's show will take place in a vacant lot on South Broad Street, just down the street from Philadelphia City Hall (1901).
A Clean Break opens three days before the closing of a similar exhibition in New York City: MoMA's Home Delivery. According to curators Barry Bergdoll and Peter Christensen, Home Delivery was "about the process of making architecture ... and the process of making an architecture show." But A Clean Break, for which planning began in January, focuses on how prefab can be integrated, realistically, into a cityscape. As Oliver explains, "We're asking 'what is the potential for urban infill?'"
The exhibition will showcase renderings of residences designed by Gans Studio & dArchitects, Studio 804, and Interface Studio Architects, and will be augmented by a pair of assembled prefab dwellings, Alchemy Architects' WeeHouse and Sustain Design Studio's MiniHome. Most of the designs are scalable or customizable, and several are already in production. "We're focused on affordability and existing technology," Oliver says.
The show also will highlight the importance of sustainable design in an urban environment. Representatives from the Philadelphia Bike Coalition will discuss the city's planned bike-share program at an informational kiosk, and a small urban farming system commissioned by Minima will be displayed in the lot alongside the prefab structures.
Alternative energy will figure heavily in A Clean Break. Washington, D.C.'s Reluminati will display its portable, scalable solar power generator, while Brooklyn's SMIT studio has designed a bus stop covered in photovoltaic film that powers overhead lights and electrical outlets.
A Clean Break is free and open to the public. For more information, visit the exhibition Web site.
Elemental awarded Silver Lion at the Venice Architecture Biennial
09.19.08
Many of the architects we are working with had also been busy preparing for the 11th International Architecture Biennial in Venice this month. Deborah Gans and Studio 804 both took part in the United States pavilion, and now we are so pleased to learn that Elemental's work was given the Silver Lion, awarded to promising young architects.
The Biennial posting reads:
Silver Lion for a Promising Young Architect in the International Exhibition (interpreted as the best work by a lesser known architectural practice).
The jury took note of the large number of projects by architects of every generation that showed a renewed interest in direct engagement with current real-world problems such as the environment, poverty and political strife. To encourage further development of that ethic, this prize was awarded to Elemental of Chile. The jury felt that the exhibited project showed an extraordinary mix of expert architectural intelligence in finance, construction and design with sensitivity to the local circumstance to produce a project that would not only provide low cost housing, but would hold out the real promise of a better economic future for its constituency.
SMIT Featured on Fox Business News
09.19.08
A fantastic article and video that introduces the Cochran syblings (it was nice for us to finally associate kind faces with the voices over the phone) and the Grow system. They have been receiving a lot of attention of late, including their inclusion in the MOMA exhibition, Design and the Elastic Mind. The commissioned bus shelter for A Clean Break will be the first application of this kind for the product.
Melding Tech with Design, SMIT Creates Solar Panel Ivy
Opening Night to Feature Free Bicycle Valet
09.19.08
We encourage walking, taking public transport or bicycling to the opening night (or any other night for that matter). To encourage two-wheeled travel, we have asked Neighborhood Bike Works to provide bicycle valet service, free of cost to you. You will notice the pint-size staff, as this program benefits the organization's mission of promoting youth development by offering educational, recreational, and career-building opportunities through bicycling, while encouraging cycling as a healthy, environment-friendly form of transportation. Be sure to tip them...we will be keeping them up past their bedtime!