How It All Started: Sam’s Memories

For a long period in college I was an Urban Studies major and I tried to live and breathe it. I devoured urban theory like The Life and Death of Great American Cities, The Arcades Project, and The Image of the City, hoping the more I read that more I’d feel its vocational calling, but always with the creeping fear that I would relapse into drama and find myself free-basing some stilted Ibsen with the rest of the drama kids. And when that happened, I wasn’t really surprised because no matter how hard I had tried, I found theater insinuating itself into my Urban Studies talk; I kept using the word “performativity,” I analogized Jane Jacobs’ Lower East Side to “a ballet of the city,” and I fully intended on writing a thesis about theater organizations’ roll in attempts to revitalize hollow downtowns. In the end, I dropped Urban Studies for Theater and thought that would be the end of it, until I noticed how Urban Studies was inflecting my theater-talk; I kept imagining site-specific work, I continued to use the word “performativity,” and I wrote a whole play about the ethno-sociology of theme parks.

It was at this unresolved point that I graduated, and returned home to DC to an internship at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, a DC theatre that led the revitalization of Downtown DC’s Chinatown/Penn Quarter neighborhood. Owen was also home, working a co-op job at a large, corporate architecture firm and feeling like his work was missing a creative, radical, experimental outlet. Over the course of the spring/summer we realized how neatly our interests overlapped – a nice little Venn diagram of theater and architecture with spatial intervention, site-specific performance, and non-traditional approaches at the center. That’s when we envisioned a collaboration – designing a special space for a performance, and a special performance for a space. We spent a bunch of late nights working together. We talked, we drew, we listened to music, we drank coffee, we wrote and we recorded it all, even the stupid half-ideas we argued about at 2 AM. We focused on the idea of thresholds and intimacy. We wanted it to be low tech. My writing exercises focused on the idea of loss; of moving into a new place of passing on/over/through, actually and metaphorically; on place-making and ritual.

Then, Owen had to go back to Cincinnati for his last year of college and I got pulled deeper into my internship and grad school applications. We let the project sit, ferment. And now we’re picking it back up, with a new collaborator, Sebastian, some structure, a blog, and an actual performance/build date. Here we go.

How it all started: Owen's Memories

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Like all good ideas, it started over a beer. Maybe 2.  I think Sam and I had been talking about the lines between theater and architecture for years.  But, the first clear recollection I have of the 4:2 project’s start was at the Capitol Lounge drinking beer and eating pizza…probably the fall of 2011.  I was home working in D.C. on co-op and Sam was home visiting from school.  Not much came out of that chat other than some napkin scribbles that would be probably left on the table, and the conviction that at some point we would work together on something….

Fast forward to late Spring, early Summer of 2012. I am working on co-op again, Sam has gradated and is back in D.C. working for a local theater company.  He has come over to my apartment for a party or something, and for whatever reason we decide to leave the hustle of the party and take a walk in the pleasant night air. D.C. really is best in the Spring at night.  We are talking about confession, intimacy, friendship, love and death.  You know, the usual cheerful things folks in their early twenties like to think about after a few beers on a Saturday night. What becomes really clear very quickly is that both of us have been thinking about these ideas a lot.  That is when we decide that this is the time to start the project we have been mulling over for a few months now.  I, with interest in small structures, Sam with his interest in non-traditional theatrical forms, will dive into something together. A play for two people in a space for two people, a space made for a play, a play made for a space, an Ouroboros of ideas.

It took us a week or so to settle on a time that we could both work on it again.  If I remember correctly it was a Thursday or Wednesday night. There were several pots of coffee, tea, popcorn and Tai food. We stayed up most of the night talking, arguing, discussing, drawing, writing, and looking at inspirational images. At the end we had a set of guiding rules, a lot of questions, and a similar understanding of what we wanted out of the project. 

We would explore ideas of threshold and intimacy.

The play would happen in a larger space somewhere.

The object/space of the play would some how relate to, or interact with the space it was in.

The whole thing would require less than 5 people to run, and if we could do it with less that would be better.

We would not rely on technological gimmicks, projectors, sound effects, ect.

We recorded all of these initial exchanges. They will be up soon. 

How it all started: Owen's Memories Notes and Sketches

Project Outline: Microstructure

One area of our education that we feel we have not explored to its potential is the beauty, craft and design of architectural details.  We wish to acquire not just an understanding of “standard” details/joints/connections, but an understating of the building logic that underpins those details, and to develop a detail based way of thinking.  Although, we understand that there is a precedent for this type of design with in the field of architecture, we believe that by executing this practical design build based project we will develop a working knowledge of detailing.  We want to design and build a small structure.

We will work with one other student on this honors experience / independent study.  By working in a small team we will greatly expand the potential for the project in terms of scale and quality.

We will build a small performance space, designed in collaboration with a playwright, in which the details relate to the structure as a whole and also reinforce the themes of the play.

The project is based around the idea of developing new ideas based on experiential research (through practical carpentry exercises) and an extensive continuous literature review.  The research problem is a direct response to a perceived gap in our education.  It comes from a understanding, developed during my time on co-op, that a lack of understanding of good architectural detail results in problems at all levels of the building project.

My goal is to be able to develop my own details to meet situational needs that will be elegant with their simplicity and creativity.

I would continue to develop my craftsmanship, specifically in wood construction. I would learn not just the mechanics of detailing but also their underlying logic to allow me to create appropriate details for non-standard conditions.  By building the details I was drawing I would gain a deeper understanding and appreciation for the difficulties of construction and how to design so that the building can be made in a cleaner, more efficient, and practical way.

Project Outline: Theater Collaboration

Architecture and theater have a surprising amount of commonality when explored on a theoretical level. Ideas of narrative, experience, and sense of place, both emotional and physical, are central to both.  Both can act as symbols of their time and place.

To explore these commonalities, we will work directly with a playwright to design a space for a play, while he writes a play for a space. Rather than one responding to a finished product from the other, the two processes, designing and writing, will take place simultaneously. A continuous exchange of ideas and information will allow us to develop a product that is unique in its complete holistic exploration of concepts common to both theater and architecture.

The play will explore the ideas of intimacy, comfort, and the line between public and private. The first and most obvious hurdle from a design standpoint is how to tempt someone into such a space, and then from the plays perspective, how to hold them there until the concepts are fully explored by the space and the play. Learning how to tackle these challenges on a small scale will better prepare us to deal with similar issues in later work.

Their exists an intellectual challenge of direct collaboration in which neither party is the “client” or “boss.” How the lines of responsibility and control are drawn will be a fascinating experience and the documentation of this could potentially be a worthwhile experience in its own right.

The independent study will be based on conducting design research through a cross disciplinary dialogue. In the discussion and collaboration with a playwright, standards or customary methods of our known design experience will change. Approaching the design process through methods of a constant exchange of built and theoretical discussions and questions, it is hoped that a unique process of design will produce a unique result.

Our goal is to be able to develop an understanding and experience of a collaborative, holistic design process. In working in tandem with a playwright, the standard methods of design will come into question, allowing for an exploration unique to my educational experience.

The development, realization, and documentation of the microstructure theater space and corresponding play will provide a set of tangible results as physical objects, lending themselves to a critique and commentary on our process of discovery and comprehension. Taking part in a process that requires collaboration, discussion, review, and guidance, the project will constantly cause us to reflect on decisions made, and with tangible results at hand, rethink actions and thoughts.