On the occasion of the New York Architecture League Prize exhibition, we designed five free standing models arrayed diagonally across the New School Arnold and Sheila Aronson Gallery. Spotlighting Akoaki’s distinct synthesis of aesthetics, social enterprise and cultural event planning, the models depicted recent installations consisted of layered waterjet cut silhouettes in a range of pop colors. Graphic and legible, the mockups, much as the constructed interventions, explore ways architecture can engage broad audiences and participate in public discourse. Among the constructs featured in 3/8” scale: The Mothership, the Nomadic Detroit Culture Council arch, and the Detroit Afrikan Funkestra. As a series, they work to establish a playful and activist lexicon related to Akoaki’s recent built interventions.
This exhibition was conceived in response to the Architecture League’s 2018 theme “Objective”, which in the words of the 2018 Young Architects + Designers Committee: “asked entrants to consider objectivity today as simultaneously elevated and undermined, in an era in which technology, science, and “post-truths” coexist.”
Interview:
Anya Sirota discusses the relationship between architecture, culture, and urban vitality.
Flash and Spectacle in the face of austerity
lecture:
Public discourse through architecture
Objective
New York City, 2018
Project Leads: Anya Sirota, Jean Louis Farges
Design Team: Jonathan Watkins
Production Team: Freddy Foote, Sarah Carter, Jordan Laurila