Sunday, December 6, 2009
Friday, November 27, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
Project Description
A handmade museum will be constructed in the form of a lounging bobcat. The size will be approximately 15 feet wide, 8 feet deep, and 12 ft tall. The interior will house a collection of materials and displays that deal with the history of the Catskill Mountains. Content will be displayed from both local historical organizations such as the Thomas Cole House and the Vedder Research Library and material collected from the local community as to seamlessly blend and combine it. Folk legends, urban myths and favorite, almost forgotten tidbits, will be displayed. A library featuring newly produced books on local histories and vernacular and hand built architecture will also be included.
This project will act as the next major step in the ongoing project
“Architectural Cribbage” a small structure building game which amounts to a platform for empowering people to define their own architectural surroundings by first envisioning the project, then working collaboratively and intuitively to partake in its manifestation.
Excerpt from the Cribs to Cribbage Brochure:
What if all potential building materials discarded in the trash could be utilized for the creation of a new public space? What if a person’s personal collection, that accumulation of stuff that is so often hidden away, could be brought out into the open, displayed and viewed by others for the first time?
People work too hard to obtain and maintain their super-sized lifestyles, while the precious stuff in their life actually barely gets used. It is that stuff, having grown old and becoming clutter, that needs to be recycled into something new, something revealed, something useful. From that purged material may be built a structure that serves as both shelter and portraiture
The Catamount Museum (as part of Cribs to Cribbage) is a sponsored project of the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA). NYFA is a 501(c)(3), tax-exempt organization founded in 1971 to work with the arts community throughout New York State and the United States to develop and facilitate programs in all disciplines. NYFA will receive grants on behalf of the Catamount Museum ensure the use of grant funds in accordance with the grant agreements, and will provide program or financial reports as required
.
Exterior:
The museum’s outward appearance will pay homage to the “wood butcher” type of handmade houses built in this area and will consist of a variety of recycled and discarded woods (such as first and second cut-offs from local mills) that will be applied shingle style to the skin of the structure. An outside sitting area will be designed to encourage communal mingling and the exchange of ideas.
Some of the construction techniques, utilized in order to obtain the organic cat shape, will be ones used by Native Americans, in which they bent and bound fresh cut saplings to build their dome shaped -Kickapoo Wigwams. These forms will be added to a structural integral “post and beam“ skeleton which will act as solid building foundation.
Content:
This museum will stress the subjective aspects of studying history, by first exploring the multiple explanations as to how the “Cat” found its way into the Town’s name “Catskill”
Whether a tribute to poet Jacob Cats, the ship titled “the Cat” which sailed up the Hudson River, or the wild cats that once hung out by the creeks (the Kills), the Catamount Museum is more interested in celebrating the unknowns of research rather than a quest for historical accuracy.
Taking an uncritical approach to something usually reserved for the expert, this project will be approachable by a wide range of participants and visitors who will be encouraged to add to the growing archive.
A process of research and development will proceed the construction of the museum in which questionaires and surveys will be used to gather content in which the community will make suggestions as to what they would like to see included in the museum’s collection.
Motivations:
This will be a continuation of my past work of small scale inhabitable museums that have appeared in public spaces such as the back side of the Brooklyn Museum, Mass MOCA, Governors Island, PS1/MOMA and Franconia Sculpture Park in Minnesota (see work examples). This will also be an opportunity for me to further explore and integrate myself into the Catskill community, which is the location for my design/build project called “b-Home.”
A goal of this project will be to expand the public’s awareness of the benefits of secondary use materials and recycling materials into shelters, exemplified by building groups such as Rural Studios and the focus of books like Garbage Housing by Martin Pawley.
The Zoomorphic aspect will reference a history of architecture taking on animal forms such as Lucy the Margate NJ Elephant, Frank Gehry’s interest in the fish as a building form. This project will also continue the legacy of the roadside attractions, which was my first interest in the built environment. Using this enticing shaped structure as a way to bring together a diverse group within the community to discuss/celebrate and share both their unique regional culture and the various back grounds of personal experiences.
Timeline:
Winter 2009 Workshops at the Catskill Community Center/ Collect Materials and outreach /research with local organizations
Spring 2010-(April-June) Begin construction on site
Summer 2010- (early June)- Grand Opening
Events and Lectures through out summer TBA
Late Fall 2010- (November) – Museum closes for the season.
This project will act as the next major step in the ongoing project
“Architectural Cribbage” a small structure building game which amounts to a platform for empowering people to define their own architectural surroundings by first envisioning the project, then working collaboratively and intuitively to partake in its manifestation.
Excerpt from the Cribs to Cribbage Brochure:
What if all potential building materials discarded in the trash could be utilized for the creation of a new public space? What if a person’s personal collection, that accumulation of stuff that is so often hidden away, could be brought out into the open, displayed and viewed by others for the first time?
People work too hard to obtain and maintain their super-sized lifestyles, while the precious stuff in their life actually barely gets used. It is that stuff, having grown old and becoming clutter, that needs to be recycled into something new, something revealed, something useful. From that purged material may be built a structure that serves as both shelter and portraiture
The Catamount Museum (as part of Cribs to Cribbage) is a sponsored project of the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA). NYFA is a 501(c)(3), tax-exempt organization founded in 1971 to work with the arts community throughout New York State and the United States to develop and facilitate programs in all disciplines. NYFA will receive grants on behalf of the Catamount Museum ensure the use of grant funds in accordance with the grant agreements, and will provide program or financial reports as required
.
Exterior:
The museum’s outward appearance will pay homage to the “wood butcher” type of handmade houses built in this area and will consist of a variety of recycled and discarded woods (such as first and second cut-offs from local mills) that will be applied shingle style to the skin of the structure. An outside sitting area will be designed to encourage communal mingling and the exchange of ideas.
Some of the construction techniques, utilized in order to obtain the organic cat shape, will be ones used by Native Americans, in which they bent and bound fresh cut saplings to build their dome shaped -Kickapoo Wigwams. These forms will be added to a structural integral “post and beam“ skeleton which will act as solid building foundation.
Content:
This museum will stress the subjective aspects of studying history, by first exploring the multiple explanations as to how the “Cat” found its way into the Town’s name “Catskill”
Whether a tribute to poet Jacob Cats, the ship titled “the Cat” which sailed up the Hudson River, or the wild cats that once hung out by the creeks (the Kills), the Catamount Museum is more interested in celebrating the unknowns of research rather than a quest for historical accuracy.
Taking an uncritical approach to something usually reserved for the expert, this project will be approachable by a wide range of participants and visitors who will be encouraged to add to the growing archive.
A process of research and development will proceed the construction of the museum in which questionaires and surveys will be used to gather content in which the community will make suggestions as to what they would like to see included in the museum’s collection.
Motivations:
This will be a continuation of my past work of small scale inhabitable museums that have appeared in public spaces such as the back side of the Brooklyn Museum, Mass MOCA, Governors Island, PS1/MOMA and Franconia Sculpture Park in Minnesota (see work examples). This will also be an opportunity for me to further explore and integrate myself into the Catskill community, which is the location for my design/build project called “b-Home.”
A goal of this project will be to expand the public’s awareness of the benefits of secondary use materials and recycling materials into shelters, exemplified by building groups such as Rural Studios and the focus of books like Garbage Housing by Martin Pawley.
The Zoomorphic aspect will reference a history of architecture taking on animal forms such as Lucy the Margate NJ Elephant, Frank Gehry’s interest in the fish as a building form. This project will also continue the legacy of the roadside attractions, which was my first interest in the built environment. Using this enticing shaped structure as a way to bring together a diverse group within the community to discuss/celebrate and share both their unique regional culture and the various back grounds of personal experiences.
Timeline:
Winter 2009 Workshops at the Catskill Community Center/ Collect Materials and outreach /research with local organizations
Spring 2010-(April-June) Begin construction on site
Summer 2010- (early June)- Grand Opening
Events and Lectures through out summer TBA
Late Fall 2010- (November) – Museum closes for the season.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Friday, April 4, 2008
first sketch
Some of the structural qualities to the museum will use a skeletal system such as Moshe Safdie’s Peobody Essex Museum building which tips it’s hat to the wooden ship building tradition and Marine animal skeletons.
From Wikipedia:
While the meaning of the name ("cat creek" in Dutch) and the namer (early Dutch explorers) are settled matters, exactly how and why the area is named is a mystery. Mountain Lions or "Catamounts" were known to have been in the area when the Dutch arrived in the 1600s[2].
The most common, and easiest, is that bobcats were seen near Catskill creek and the present-day village of Catskill, and the name followed from there. However there is no record of bobcats ever having been seen in significant numbers on the banks of the Hudson, and the name Catskill does not appear on paper until 1655, more than four decades later.
Other theories include:
* A corruption of kasteel, the Dutch sailors' term for the Indian stockades they saw on the riverbank. According to one Belgian authority, kat occurs in many place names throughout Flanders and has nothing to do with cats and everything to do with fortifications.[citation needed]
* It was to honor Dutch poet Jacob Cats, who was also known for his real estate prowess, profiting from speculation in lands reclaimed from the sea.
* A ship named The Cat had gone up the Hudson shortly before the name was first used. In nautical slang of the era, cat could also mean a piece of equipment, or a particular type of small vessel.
* It has also been suggested that it refers to lacrosse, which Dutch visitors had seen the Iroquois natives play. Kat can also refer to a tennis racket, which a lacrosse stick resembles, and the first place the Dutch saw this, further down the river in the present-day Town of Saugerties, they gave the name Kaatsbaan, for "tennis court," which is still on maps today.
The confusion over the exact origins of the name led over the years to variant spellings such as Kaatskill and Kaaterskill, both of which are also still used, the former in the regional magazine Kaatskill Life, the latter as the name of a town, creek, clove, mountain and waterfall.
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