40 years of layered maps of St. Louis, from the late 1800s to the 1930s. If you zoom in, you can see how the streets seem to tumble over each other as each map tries to make up for the previous' discrepancies. For the first phase of my studio this semester, I'm mapping the engineering work the city funded over 100 years to change the River des Peres from a clean river into a veritable sewer that flows straight into the Mississippi.

The photos are samples of the industrial area that borders part of the river.

More to come!

Continue

mapping traffic sequences of cars/buses/people after exiting the ferry terminal.
Continue

workin' on mapping ole home, adale. possible doing some studies/overlays. would really like to focus on new initiatives in the area. projects include a new fresh market, new public library, and newly renovated interiors along main street. super interested in design attempts at re-introducing walking culture in a rural southern town. Continue

timeline/map of onondaga creek's channelization, from an extensive
(but slightly graphically inept) report + proposal from the onondaga environmental institute.
i'm so intrigued about how quiet this thing is. there really isn't that much excitement about what
these spaces could become/do for a city that's hardscaped five ways from sunday.
Continue

Facebook maps it.#2

Non-Collective stuff faded out, as suggested. The asterisks indicate directionality when needed. Also, the black-white background makes the lines easier to see, but is too much character in the pictures being lost w/out color? Or does b.&w. actually clean the whole thing up a bit? The version with color is below. Most importantly, is this interesting enough for me to go ahead and keep doing them? It could be neat as a series later, but only if it's interesting to other people. Thoughts?






















Continue

One Dozen Eggs = 60 Linear Inches

Photos in elevation didn't work, literally breaking the egg flat didn't work, but a simple pen and paper trace did. For a new project, I'm mapping the cracks of one dozen eggs, and creating a single linear "graph" of these events. You'd think it'd be simple, but things that are spherical, elliptical, endless, infinite, don't want to flat lines, anymore than they want to be broken. These are some photo studies I did, just some observations on the quality of the line that makes up an egg-crack. Much more to come...

Continue

Face[book] map

We know we're connected. It's so very Collective of us. What's been fascinating me lately is that at any given moment, a screenshot of our Facebooks illustrates this. Our digital identity is literally comprised of each other, proving that we exist as a network rather than as insular selves.

Facebook screenshots taken 11.11.09-12:14am. The strongest connections in this one are Temples' photographs and Casey's B-day. This is just a rough-run. More Facebook immediacy to come [as a series], as well as a cleaned-up system.

Your face[book] will be mapped! Stay organic, folks.
Continue

news ps - news.

vale.  so every semester at metáfora, there is an exhibition that the school co-organizes with a gallery in the city. this term, the show is titled "reduce the unnecessary" and it will be held in gràcia in a small gallery called UntitledBCN. there are only 10 slots, so everyone submitted proposals to one of our profs...hungarian diva who normally tain't havin' it...to see who gets in. i got in! so the show, i think, opens 21 noviembre. i will definitely keep everyone updated with the piece, press release, etc...  i am still working on the concept/prelim drama. i want to create a large-scale map of my past month in terms of seemingly insignificant experiences in different parts of the city. i guess i concocted the idea when kells and i randomly saw an old man riding nude on a bike in the middle of my quasi family-oriented neighbo(u)rhood. i want these instances (and there be many) to be very small and beautifully illustrated on a large-scale "map". time will tell how this map chooses to represent itself. meanwhile, i'm playing with my walking/train routes this past week. i'm using the red line the most...is that weird? anyone? Continue

work = more work

donzo for nowzo. (read below to find out about the d & t workshop and studio WEATHERS)

(up) "Wanderings is in pursuit of a 'climatic infrastructure' for commercial and public domains that augments and re-configures existing external micro-climates for occupation and programmatic use. "

on to the design + technology workshop! a biannual 36 hour charette featuring critic Sean Lally from the w-e-a-t-h-e-r-s office out of chicago. check it out. it is pretty great stuff.

teams are made up of 2 returning grads, 2 adv standing, and 2 newbies.
group work, here i come.
Continue

mapping parte dos.

making text spatial, along with some simple diagrams.
(work in progress)

p.s. cardinal directions are the new black.

Continue

in an attempt to describe...

(iconography mapping of the e fayette and westmoreland block)
local signage from the site:
1. stripping away of color and symbols
2. let with data and the heirarchy in which it appears inform us about what is important on the site
3. categorize data (highlighting such groups as cars, food, and health) in order to find the predominance of certain industries

to come: a version which depicts signage as it appears relative to other signs, adding depth of field (getting closer to a map) and points of orientation.
Continue

convenience, surveillance, and crime.

the semester has started at su, and it begins with a rather dismal program: a convenience store + recreational area in an impoverished neighborhood. the diagram above (currently in progress) describes crime activity in the area of our site within the last year or so.

convenience stores are magnets for crime, so i'm working to prepare the little guy for a good ole fashioned drive-by (half kidding). i'm currently exploring the following issues:

1. surveillance (through achieving a type of self-policing)
-the panopticon
-actual surveillance systems (set up strictly to monitors, not to record activity)

2. transparency/light
-light transmitting concrete
-bright, sometimes ridiculously lit areas

3. respect for community
-keeping "patrician's snowflake bakery + limousine service" (though we are all sure that is a crack cover-up).
-using salvaged/re purposed materials from the site.
Continue