Kickstarter

YOU CAN fill the void of vacant retail space jeopardizing the vitality of community streetscapes. Help us construct this installation for the BUILD YOUR OWN WORLD 2010 01SJ Biennial (http://01sj.org/) with donations, suggestions, and hammer and nails. Watch micro-finance in action and, if you get 10 people to pledge, we are halfway there and you will also get a t-shirt with an image of the expanding architecture.

An innovative solution to empty retail space, (OP)space's “open source” system of pre-fabricated, modular architecture encourages USERS TO PROPOSE AND HOST user-generated events (also funded by Kickstarter?!). Similar to the Zipcar strategy, spatial and infrastructural resources are shared among multiple users. Bottom-up community generated uses respond to needs and desires of the neighborhood. Help us strengthen the social contract in faltering communities.

The environment acts as a venue for cultural performances, as a gallery space, for meetings, bicycle repairs, instruction, bartering, relaxing and anything else you can think of. Curation of the space is managed in combination with the environment by CCA students. The project will allow students to research and design the parameters of an urban intervention and to carry out the hypothesis as a full-scale experiment.

WE NEED TO GET THIS BUILT! Be part of the solution to empty storefronts by constructing this proof of concept. Installation sites: WORKS GALLERY, San Jose; followed by the historic Telephone Building in San Francisco, California (October 2010).

http://csslink.wordpress.com/
http://ulab.cca.edu

The project is led by Dr. Mona El Khafif, Associate Professor at CCA and project coordinator of URBANlab; Adjunct Professor Kory Bieg; and the following students: Josh Campos, Alexa Getting, Brittany Glover, Richard Lyttle, Carlos Martinez, Jeronimo Roldan, Lauren Tichy, Fabiola Vargas, Mike Vargas, Rachael Yu, and Maryam Zahedi. The CCA URBANlab was founded by the director of CCA Architecture Dr. Ila Berman.

VERY PUBLIC ARTS is a not-for-profit fiscally sponsored by Community Initiatives of San Francisco whose mission is to activate public spaces through temporary installations of art, architecture and design. Your contribution is tax deductible.