National Architecture Week
April 14, 2010 
5 Comments
I like architects because let’s face it, they’re geeks. They love to live in a conceptual dimension with a vocabulary all of their own. Architects are at the very center of shaping a city’s identity because they are creative professionals that operate at the interface between disparate fields like urban planning and interior design. So when a member of the local Young Architects Interns and Associates Group (yAIAg) pinged me about Architecture Week in Spokane, I jumped at the chance to put my two cents in.
Design by Carson Schultz
Instead of describing their project as a gigantic armor-plated (albeit awesome-looking) cardboard slug slinking across the floor of River Park Square Mall, it is “a spatial intervention that is intended to intercept the public’s attention and inform them about National Architecture Week and the creativity/abilities of local architects.” It is similar in purpose to a 2-dimensional display our staff refers to as “Stonehenge,” cobbled together by Gabriel Brown for CME.
While the young architects are bristling with off the wall ideas unbridled by years of experience in an often painfully pragmatic industry, they also have undergone intensive study of architectural history. In the April issue of Inland Architect, a yAIAg member describes the profound influence the Expo had on Spokane’s landscape in a column titled “The Hometown Tourist.”
Designed and fabricated by Jeff Hyslop, yAIAg and several students from WSU-Spokane’s Masters of Architecture program.
Dare I detect a hint of 60′s/70′s prism preoccupation in this sculpture’s design? I love the patterns in the skylights on the ceiling of the Pavilion, and the shapes and colors of the floor tiles in the women’s restroom at Suki Yaki Inn and the breakfast area at Shangri La.
When one of the graduate students working on this installation was asked by a little kid “What is that?” he responded, “A question machine.” I think that is a great way of looking at and approaching this project. It is a way for us as future architects and designers to push ideas on an attainable scale, while contently asking questions and challenging preconceptions. In this case architectural questions like, what is circulation, how can information be displayed, what is structure, and how does form evolve, and what makes a form engaging. -Jeff Hyslop
As a city that juxtaposes the Public Health Building with the Courthouse, I think we have something to say about architecture. For better or for worse. Either way there are a growing number of groups interested in alternative building and design, with several more invariably on their way.
About the Author
damn, That was a niece piece.
I spent nearly an hour shopping in River Park Square a few days ago. Not an easy task for me. The Hyslop and friends piece kept me going. The scent of Cinnabon, plastic, and over priced cologne are the shoppers usual motivators. Years of market research has proven this. Installation art is over looked in this regard. The knowledge that I am surrounded by (or in the presence of) intriguing, professional art is all the motivation I need.
Im super hyped that you wrote about this, I knew you would.
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
-AE
As one of the aforementioned students from WSU Spokane’s M.Arch program who helped design and build the installation, I would like to thank you for taking a moment to write about our work. It was about six weeks of planning and design, followed by a week of laser-cutting and an intensive 24 hours of stapling which wrought what you now see in the main mall lobby. We all sincerely hope you enjoy it and come up with your own explanations as to what the form is “supposed to be” (a question we were unprepared for, yet asked approximately every five minutes during construction). We have learned quite a bit from our work with Jeff Hyslop and the rest of yAIAg, and I thank them for their inclusion of our class in Architecture Week.
A Question Machine — that’s great description! This display really embodies the whole intention of National Architecture Week and its manifestation here in Spokane. NAW week was designed to solicit the community for ideas regarding the potential of our built environment and to further develop a dialogue between Spokane and its architects.
Your comparison in this blog between the mall installation and prism preoccupations reflects the potential of architecture and its ability to withdrawal a nostalgic response, while simultaneously instigating spatial inquiry from the user. In my opinion, it is the tension between those two (the nostalgic and the unknown) where architecture gets interesting.