Design99 - Urban Trend: Slowing Down
Design99
Detroit, Michigan
Urban Trend: Slowing Down
Following the Sun, 2013
5 min.
Learn more about Slowing Down on 100urbantrends.org: http://www.bmwguggenheimlab.org/100ur...
This video was commissioned as part of Participatory City: 100 Urban Trends from the BMW Guggenheim Lab, on view at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum from October 11, 2013 - Jan 5, 2014. Learn more at http://www.guggenheim.org/100urbantrends.
Bio:
Gina Reichert and Mitch Cope founded Design99 (visitdesign99.com) in 2007 to investigate new models of contemporary art and architectural practice. The team began by offering over-the-counter design consultations from their storefront studio space and $99 house call specials. Now they investigate art and aesthetics in their neighborhood of Detroit by rehabilitating houses.
Since 2008, Cope and Reichert have collaborated on a project called the Power House. It is a test site for ideas and methods, lo- and hi-tech building systems, and a point of conversation for the entire neighborhood. In 2009, they founded Power House Productions (PHP), a nonprofit organization focused on neighborhood stabilization through art and culture. PHP facilitates the work of artists initiating long-term projects and cultural and recreational programming in the neighborhood.
Design99 has exhibited in galleries and museums internationally, including the Mattress Factory Art Museum, Pittsburgh (2013); Venice Architecture Biennale (2012); Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (2010); Kunsthalle Wien Project Space, Vienna (2010); and Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, the Netherlands (2009). Their work has been featured on CNN and NPR and in the New York Times and Details magazine. Design99 received a Creative Capital grant (2013), the Juried Grand Prize at ArtPrize (2012), a Kresge Arts in Detroit Fellowship (2011), and was nominated for a USA Artists' grant (2010).
Statement:
Following the Sun (2013) depicts the opening up of the roof of the Power House to install a south-facing clerestory window. This new window serves as the main component of a passive solar heating system. The project balances pragmatism with impracticality and poetics by rethinking the typical Detroit house without alienating it from its origins.