Archinect Honorable Mention

Photography by Cheryl Ramsay www.ramsayphotography.com

Archinect, Communication Booth Competition, Honorable Mention, January 2002

The Honorable Mention award shown is a Praystation, a CD copy of famous projects by the ancient web design god, Joshua Davis.

This is what the jury had to say:

"Through a difficult and dark reading of ´shared existence´, the problem of doing so ´intimately´ is exposed and subsequently unfolded. The careful presentation supports this layered understanding. It communicates its `truth` viscerally." Claudia Montesinos, RoTo Architects, Los Angeles

"Very strong, poetic and the fact that it tells stories really ties the idea together. Seems like an interesting thinker." Pontus Wahlgren, IDEO, San Francisco

"Wow. I think I only really understand the first one -the truth jetty -the place you go to be provoked into a deeper communication, probably with yourself. But who knows. As for the others, perhaps it’s because I’m not seeing these for real, but they seem obscure. A great deal of beautiful execution. Clearly this is an impactful set of artifacts and no doubt seeing them for real will provide many responses. They question is: what do they mean? Amazing but opaque. This is very hard to judge because you feel that so much concept and design and presentation effort has been expended here. But does it respond to the brief in a meaningful way, or is it too tangential/removed?" Mat Hunter, IDEO, Europe

Design Team: Nathan Lee Colkitt, AIA, Gregory Marx De Peña, Michael Rocco Sablone, and David Marc Schafer

Below is an outline discription of OPERA’s Communication Booth Competition entry:

This project was submitted physically and has been very difficult to document for those who can’t see it in person. It is packaged in 8 custom-sized MDF boxes held together with black screws and labeled with the "negotiations" logo (title of project), the title of the component, and the number of the component (ie - 2/8). There are 8 components. Each component is an artifact within a MDF box and is accompanied by a small booklet (photo of booklets) describing the component.

truth jetty (1/8)

this component is a 5-page document which appears to have been faxed. the first page is the title (truth jetty 1/8) and the following 4 pages contain text.

sea freedom (2/8)

this component is the smallest and contains a plain white audio cassette that fits perfectly within the box. the cassette has a recording of a person (badly) singing old rock songs (desperado, eye of the tiger, etc.). there is a lot of static in

the background which makes it hard to make out the context… perhaps in the shower? at one point a phone rings in the background. it almost seems like the singer doesn’t realize that he’s being recorded… but that’s my interpretation.

after many minutes of this singing the audio gets distorted with just a high pitched sound remaining… then, after a delay the words, "freedom………… sea" are heard, slightly distorted. the high pitched sound continues until the tape ends.

river belief (3/8)

this component is a VHS tape that fits perfectly in the wood box. when played it is a grainy home video opening with the word "river" on a black screen then showing a train passing by from different perspectives. the only sounds are the wind blowing by and the sounds of the train rolling by on the tracks with the occasional train whistle. the video lasts a few minutes then fades to white with the word "belief" slowly fading in.

power peak (4/8)

this component is a box of 3 Trojan® lubricated larger size condoms". the package fits perfectly inside the wood box.

existence field (5/8)

this component is 12" x 13" piece of Plexiglas approximately 1cm thick. there is a small hole drilled through at one point with a piece of metal filling the hole.

cave wisdom (6/8)

this component is a 11cmX11cmX11cm cube apparently made of a blackened metal. it is VERY heavy. it did not fit perfectly with a box, rather it was placed in the center of a much larger box. based on the weight it was surprising to find such a small artifact.

path knowledge (7/8)

this component is a series of 11 parts of an Encyclopedia Britannica set. all parts are stuck together…. as are all the pages within each edition. there is a 9cm diameter hole perfectly through all editions.

force fissure (8/8)

this component is the largest, standing upright at 155cm (61"). it is made out of metal sheets and has a jagged slit cut out near the top with a Polaroid suspended behind, partially visible. the photo appears to be red paint or even blood splattered on a sidewalk. below the photo, on the white bottom of the Polaroid it is hand-written "28 m??"