Fun with Algorithms! Workshop Info

Hi all,

Hopefully, you have all had a chance to sift through the readings that I posted. I have enjoyed reading through your summaries and answering your questions. Before the start of the workshop, please be sure to skim through the Scripting Primer that I posted. Also, I believe Carol is helping you with the download of the trial version of Rhino 4. You should have this downloaded and installed by the start of the workshop. I will assume that you are all new to Rhino and scripting, so, don't worry about not having experience prior to the workshop. Below is a general outline for the workshop. I suggest that students work in groups of 2-3, but am open to individual projects if some of you prefer to work alone. I will be working on several models alongside you. You are free to join in, ask questions, etc. at any moment. See you soon!

Day 1: SCRIPTING FUN! Lecture by Jenny and Introduction to scripting in Rhino. Scripting explorations and production of first matrix catalogue drawing.

Day 2: UPSETTING SYMMETRIES: CODE AND CONTEXT

Review initial drawings (plotted) and begin fabrication planning. Additional scripting investigations and formal assemblies

Day 3: FABRICATION: MATERIAL MATTERS

Digital model prep; first batch of .stl files sent to 3D printer and .dwg files to laser cutter.

Day 4: ASSEMBLY AND PRODUCTION

Second and final batches of .stl files sent to 3D printer and .dwg files to laser cutter. Fabrication and assembly of models. Final drawings sent to plotter.

Day 5: INSTALLATION

Gallery set-up and opening. Carol, is it possible to have an evening opening of the student work on Tuesday, 21st?

Rebar is coming!

Hello All,

Thank you for posting images and thoughts on potential intervention sites as well as your bio's. What a fantastic group! We are very excited to be working with you.

At this point you should begin to assemble yourselves into groups of 3-5 people, ideally interdisciplinary teams. Carol, perhaps you can assist with this process if this does not come easily. Next the team should identify a preferred site or two for intervention, and a back up site.

Once you have identified a site, the team should produce a rough site analysis diagram. This diagram should summarize the site's opportunities and constraints: people traffic patterns, weather patterns (simple sun-shade analysis, wind direction), observed behaviors, unmet needs and opportunities for intervention.

Using these site analysis diagrams the team should come up with some goals and objectives for your intervention. What is the broad purpose and intent of your project? These should be listed as bullet points on a design concept sheet.

The next step is to begin to source materials for your intervention. Anything is up for grabs. Blaine and I are bringing some materials to experiment with inflatables but you could choose any material that you wish. Ideally we can pull something out of the waste stream, re purpose it, and then compost or recycle it when we are done. Scrap wood, cardboard, newspaper, sheet metal, found objects, etc. But don't be constrained by this goal. If your intervention is best realized using plastic, ballons, car tires, circuit boards, etc. that is OK too. You also may approach the intervention as a social sculpture and execute an event that uses no other materials than your own bodies, minds, and voices.

If team members want to propose individual interventions, or a come up with a proposal for a permanent intervention that is great. You may work on a physical or digital model. Just be prepared to assist the team with a physical intervention for our final class period on April 3rd.

The way we see the week unfolding is as follows (rough description, subject to modification):

March 27: First Class Meeting. Blaine and I will be ready with inflated Bushwaffle. We would like you to lead us out to your proposed intervention sites. At these sites we will explore the spacemaking potential of bushwaffe. We will describe some of our groundrules for working in public space - namely that we are out to create an atmosphere of playful inclusiveness, if we create a siutation that includes accidental participants and they walk away smiling we've done a good job;-)

March 28 - April 2: Blaine and I will be working in the studio testing inflatables and trying to evolve the design of Bushwaffle. At anytime during this week you are free to drop in on us, pitch an idea, ask questions, or ask for help with your intervention concept or fabrication.

During this week you should choose an intervention site, finalize your concept, and complete fabrication.

By wednesday evening teams should send us their intervention location. We will map out a route to follow for Fridays class and post to the blog Thursday evening.

Friday,April 3 - Intervention Day!: As a class we will proceed to each team's intervention site and witness, explore, experience the intervention. We will have 30- 40 minutes at each site. At the last site we will have a closing discussion.

Following the last class we would like each team to post documentation of their working process:models, thoughts, experiments, successes, failures, and the documentation of the final intervention. This may be with photos, drawings, videos. etc.

Rebar will review and comment on the class experience and create a webpage of the class projects on Bushwaffle.com and rebargroup.org.


And here is my bio:

John Bela directs Rebar with Matthew Passmore and Blaine Merker. As an artist, designer, and activist, John devises and executes tactical urban interventions intended to remix the way we occupy and inhabit urban space. Trained in art, science, and environmental design, John works with CMG Landscape Architecture and SF Victory Gardens designing and building public landscapes and urban gardens in San Francisco. John is described as an ideas volcano that has an unnatural ability to tap into concepts with broad cultural currency. A passionate urbanist, he simultaneously sees the way things could be and the humor and absurdity of what is.

John has taught Capoeria to villagers on the Osa Penisula of Costa Rica, drank magic potion and built medicinal plant gardens with Shamans in the Ecuadorian Amazon, and solo climbed granite spires in the Sierra Nevada. John travels and lectures internationally, most recently in Venice, Italy and Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

JB on tee vee: Watch Blair Randal, John Bela, Alice Waters, and Gavin Newsom interviewed by Jamie Durie of The Victory Garden—television's longest running gardening show—on PBS.


Recent Lectures
Featured Speaker. Sustainable Systems: 3 Local Solutions. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco. 8/27/08
Featured Speaker. Design Strategies and Conflict Resolution. The Design and Technology Department, San Francisco Art Institute. 11/19/08
Featured Presenter. Urban Farms Now. The Seed Fund in collaboration with SFMOMA A + D Forum 11/11/08

See you soon!

Rebargroup: More on inflatables

Ant Farm published this great inflatable how-to manual back in the 70s. Much of it's still relevant....except maybe the advice to burn polyethylene after using (they had yet to worry about carbon emissions).

Social ecology

The groundwork for a lot of the way we think about public space was laid by social ecology and environmental psychology thinkers of the mid- to late-20th century. If you're not already familiar with these names, have a look at some of the links here, and if you'd like, check out their original writings.

The proto-urbanist of the modern city is Lewis Mumford. He had a way with words--one of my favorite quotes of his is "forget the damned motor car and build the city for lovers and friends." His writings were the beginning of the critique of the engineered, technocratic city that would later become the populist defense of Greenwich Village against freeways and urban renewal made by Jane Jacobs. Her most important book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, gets into the social life of neighborhoods and explores the kind of informal social interactions that make for resilient, safe, interesting places. New York's Project for Public Spaces considers Jacobs its intellectual godmother. Her defense of "eyes on the street" and informal play on stoops and in alleyways ran against the grain in the 60s, but is common wisdom in planning today.

Allan Jacobs, no relation to Jane, is a designer at emeritus faculty at UC Berkeley. His book Great Streets outlines the design characteristics of good public spaces and looks at how scale and form contribute to the social life of cities.

The person to have done the most to create primary research on how people actually use public space is William Whyte. His contribution was to systematize and quantify the successful design characteristics of public spaces (much like Corbusier did for architecture in creating the proportions of his Modulor Man) by actually filming people using public space and scientifically analyzing their behaviors. Whyte's work was tremendously influential and helped urban designers understand the human implications of the spaces they were creating. 

Strategies, tactics and interim uses...hello Texas A&M

John Bela and I are sitting in cafe in San Francisco planning out our workshop with you in a couple weeks. We're looking forward to it! From the looks of the blog, you've started doing some good background work already. We'll be posting some more leads for you to check out in the next few days. 

To start us off, check out this excellent article by our friend Chris Roach. In it, Chris lays out a basic framework for thinking about the kind of work we're about to engage in together. He also mentions other research that you might want to look into. This provides a good overview of the ground we'll be covering.

Next Friday, we'll be on a conference call with your class so we can check in with any questions you have and discuss any prep we need to do before the workshop.