BIENNALE

The following excerpts are taken from the curatorial statement:

"The Urban Design Build Studio (UDBS) is a Public Interest Design entity and affiliated outreach arm of the Carnegie Mellon University School of Architecture. The mission of the UDBS is to develop regionally specific, environmentally appropriate building strategies in collaboration with residents and stakeholders in underserved urban communities. The UDBS places specific focus on the implementation of strategies that can catalyze positive urban futures and be replicated within the dominant social, political and economic realities of that context."

"BY DEMONSTRATION reflectively and projectively explores the work of the UDBS in suggesting a RE _ EMERGENT UTOPIA. This is an alternative form of Utopia; one that originates at the edge - in the marginalized and underutilized sectors of the city . . . A scalar representation of Pittsburgh, PA provides a physical reference point through which to consider the work of the UDBS and the RE _ EMERGENT UTOPIA."

My focus within BY DEMONSTRATION lies in the development of the physical installation and an animated curatorial statement. The exaggerated foam topography of Pittsburgh sits on a rugged base of interlocking plywood curvatures. Lights projected onto the topography denote the “marginalized and underutilized sectors of [Pittsburgh].” On the other side of the form, a screen displays the curatorial statement. Explaining the work of the Urban Design Build Studio, the animated statement hovers over a video that accelerates through Pittsburgh: starting in neighborhoods of blight and ending with the grandeur of the Fort Pitt Tunnel entrance to the city.