Department of Unusual Certainties

ML_Québec Regional Exhibition @ Parisian Laundry

srabyniuk — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:05:38 +0000

Its been a busy week for the Migrating Landscapes Organizers with three regional exhibitions opening. On Monday, January 16th, the Atlantic Canada exhibition opened at Dalhousie School of Architecture in Halifax. Wednesday, January 18, the Québec exhibition opened at Parisian Laundry in Montréal. The week was rounded out with the Saskatchewan exhibition opening at the Mendal Art Gallery in Saskatoon on January 19. For DoUC three regional exhibitions has meant the creation of three new timelines; equalling a total of 86′ of Canadian history. Over the course of working on the Migrating Landscapes project DoUC no longer understands history in terms of time but in only distances.

ML_QC is the first Migrating Landscapes exhibition we’ve been able to attend. We arrived to witness the jury considering the architectural landscape/model installations. The installation was suppose to use an additional 40000 lbs of wood. With the exhibition taking place on the second floor of Parisian Laundry there was concern that the structure of the building couldn’t support it- MLO improvised another approach. The undulating thick wooden pillars were replaced with these slightly raised plywood platforms that marked the intended footprint of the first approach. It maintained the immersive quality of the installation while also making the models very approachable.

Here are some photos of our timeline and map projection video from the ML_QC opening; we’ll be posting pictures from Halifax, and Saskatoon at a later tine

ML_AB

ML_BC

in conversation with Broken City Lab

srabyniuk — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:17:46 +0000

On December 8th, 2011 Broken City Lab’s Justin A. Langlois and Michelle Soulliere joined Department of Unusual Certainties at the Design Exchange to discuss to discuss the city as a space for creative intervention. Here is a recording of that conversation:

DoUC in Conversation with BCL

-2012- Holiday Update

srabyniuk — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 23:47:16 +0000

In the New Year DoUC’s co-founder Brendan Cormier is moving to Amsterdam to become the Managing Editor of Volume Magazine. The studio wishes Brendan much success with this exciting opportunity.

The coming year holds much work for DoUC, including the Migrating Landscapes exhibition series which will finish at the 2012 Venice Architectural Biennale opening in August; with upcoming exhibitions in Halifax, Montreal, Saskatoon, Toronto, and Winnipeg. Stay posted, more projects to be announced later.

The Dept.’s Christopher Pandolfi and Simon Rabyniuk are pleased to be joined by collaborators Amy Peebles, Natasha Basacchi, and Aliya Tejani. DoUC has been working with Amy for the past year. She has provided excellent research support on numerous projects. Currently Amy is heading up the Dept’s fund raising efforts with Migrating Landscapes. Natasha and Aliya started working with the studio at the start of Migrating Landscapes and have been contributing to the research and layout of the timelines.

We are excited to see how the ever present End Times of 2012 will unfold.

Amy Peebles is the Creative Director of Urban Synergies, a small consulting firm specializing in arts and culture based community engagement. Her passion for community planning came from a childhood spent overseas observing the beautifully hospitable and resourceful cultures in Indonesia and Cambodia, as well as completing a Bachelors Degree of Urban and Regional Planning at Ryerson University. She has had the great pleasure of working in Guyana from September 2010 to March of this year, bringing the practice of community planning to the forefront alongside the Central Housing and Planning Authority. An avid wanderer and writer, you can check out her ramblings at www.urbansynergies.ca.

Natasha Basacchi grew up in Richmond Hill, Ontario until moving to Toronto to attend Ryerson University. She graduated in 2010 with a Bachelor of Architectural Science. Her thesis focused on incremental housing for the displaced population of Tbilisi, Georgia. The following year and a half she worked with the City of Toronto in the Employment and Social Services division, in both Ontario Works and Employment Centre offices. Natasha is currently volunteering for SKETCH, an arts initiative for street-involved and homeless youth, and the DoUC. She is excited to be back in a creative setting and looking forward expanding her design portfolio with the DoUC.

Aliya Tejani is a recent graduate of York University’s Master in Environmental Studies (Planning) program. Aliya also has a B.Sc. in Physiology and a Diploma in Environmental Studies from McGill University. Always trying to use her interdisciplinary brain, she is interested in the formation of variegated urban spaces that merge cultural and natural processes in innovative ways through the use of design. She is motivated by social and environmental justice issues, and has been involved with numerous grassroots organizations throughout the years. Inspired by DoUC’s work, she strives to use creativity as a mechanism for social change. In her spare time, she helps a downtown community group in resolving some of their urban planning issues, volunteers with Project Neutral, and serves as a peer reviewer for the Plan Canada publication.

ML_AB @ Illingworth Kerr Gallery, Calgary

srabyniuk — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 00:40:14 +0000

Migrating Landscapes’ Alberta Regional Exhibition is now open at the Illingworth Kerr Gallery at the Alberta College of Art + Design in Calgary. The exhibition runs Dec 7 – 17.

Migrating landscapes is a cross-Canada architectural competition exploring the experience of migration through oral histories and architectural expressions. DoUC is creating ‘preambles’ for each exhibition in the form of timelines and interactive map projections. Here are some pictures from the exhibition courtesy the Migrating Landscapes Organizers.

ML_AB Migrating Timelines: Calgary

Past ML Exhibitions:

Migrating Landscapes @ Museum of Vancouver

#MOVE CHARRETTE- Food Diffused

christopherpandolfi — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:47:23 +0000

On the weekend of October 11th-13th DoUC took part in the Move Transportation charrette (part of the Move Expo) hosted by Evergreen and the Institute without Boundaries. The Charrette focused on ten different themes all revolving around a core theme of transportation. DoUC was given with the role of lead designers for the Food not Crude team tasked with imagining local agriculture integrated into the urban, suburban, and regional fabric, increasing food security within cities, raising incomes of local farmers, and finally reducing the overall “costs” of distance associated with moving food.

The team, made up of both designers and various food experts quickly gravitated to the idea of looking at the whole system of food delivery and began to think about ways in which we could disrupt it. After insightful talks around the problems of food monopolies, where and how food was produced, and issues around equality regarding the access and consumption of food from both the users and producers perspective we moved towards the concept of a Diffused Network.

The Diffused Network

A food network that breaks down the hierarchies and bottle neck which plagues our current food system. The problem of food monopolies is that they not only have control of pricing and location but also on transportation methods. Our system attempts to open up both the possibilites of food delivery as well as the market place. Providing the opportunity for small operations to thrive and support one another.

Key Concepts

1. A large digital network acting as a marketplace where producers,storage, processors, distributors, waste, and consumers can meet buy and sell and choose the different options available to them regarding the kind of food they eat and how it gets delivered to them. The user is sometimes a producer, sometimes a consumer, and sometimes both.

2. The majority of food delivery trip will be done by existing regional and city level public transport systems. Creating a system where trips are piggy backing off existing trips that are already being made. The focus is create a system where the last mile of food is always car free.

3. A system of hierarchal nodes that allow for both storage, processing, and distribution at different scales allowing for the system to be flexible.

The project was presented to the public on October 20th at Evergreen. The project will be further developed as part of the Move Expo to be held at Evergreen at the Brickworks in May of 2012. DoUC would like to thank all the team members, stakeholders, Evergreen, and IwB for including us in this great event. You can see the presentation here.

DoUC in Conversation with Broken City Lab

christopherpandolfi — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 19:47:00 +0000

Department of Unusual Certainties in conversation with Broken City Lab…two practices, one love. A roving night of dialogue focusing on the city as a workplace.

When: December 8th 2011 6:30-7:30pm

Where: The Design Exchange, 234 Bay Street, Toronto.

This is event is pay-what-you-can.

Drinks will be served.

This is the third instalment of the Design Exchange’s Salon Nights : In Conversation Series. http://www.dx.org/index.cfm?id=6582#salon

DoUC in the Archives

christopherpandolfi — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 22:35:55 +0000

DoUC employee Brendan Cormier is at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, on a two-week study residency to plunder their extensive and excellent archive. Research work will focus on two separate projects – rummaging for past speculative works of urban design that focus on the Canadian urban landscape for a special side project called CAUSE (Canadian Archive for Urban Speculation and Enquiry) – as well as continued research work for DoUC’s contribution to the Migrating Landscapes Show at the 2012 Venice Biennale.

Preliminary discoveries include: Wild factory development speculation in Saskatoon, an alternate City Beautiful in Calgary, the sheer logistical feat of the Dominion Land Survey, crumbling bridges, uncontrollable floods, and Tolstoy’s relations with the Doukhobors. Look to the CAUSE website shortly for new additions, as well as the Migrating Landscapes shows in Calgary, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Halifax, Toronto and Montreal.

A big thanks to the CCA for offering this opportunity.

Who Feeds the City?

christopherpandolfi — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 17:21:51 +0000

The Fall Issue of Spacing Magazine is all about food and the city. Hunting down remnants of old farms in the city, enjoying culinary treats in strip malls, growing grain in hydro corridors – you can find it all here in this issue.

DoUC also contributed something special – a map which looks at the landscape of supermarket distribution centres – where 75% of the food on our plate comes from. We’ve provided a full-scale view of it here for your viewing pleasure. And if you’re interested in the geography of food you should go out and purchase the magazine.

Migrating Landscapes @ Museum of Vancouver

srabyniuk — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 23:06:03 +0000

DoUC loves Venice.

The Department is a strategic partner with Jae-Sung Chon + 5468796 Architecture who are the Migrating Landscapes team that is curating the Canadian Pavilion at the 2012 Architecture Biennial in Venice.

In the lead up to Venice Sept 2012 the Migrating Landscapes team are organizing a cross Canada competition/exhibition series asking Canadian architects to speak about their experience of migration. The first exhibition opens tonight at the Museum of Vancouver running until Nov. 27. Our contribution to Migrating Landscapes is a series of large scale infographics exploring regional histories related to immigration and its impact on Canadian architecture. We are also developing a series of interactive installations that will serve as collecting pools for exhibition visitors own experience of migration.

Exhibitions are happening in Vancouver, Calgary, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal, and Halifax, with the national finals in Winnipeg Spring 2012.

SAUGA 2030

christopherpandolfi — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 15:58:31 +0000

SAUGA 2030 is an iPhone app and installation that looks at a future Mississauga and its public spaces in the year 2030. It debuted at the Art Gallery of Mississauga in the summer of 2011 as a part of the Meet Us On the Commons show. Through demographic and statistical projections, science fiction coppings, and creative trend forecasting, DoUC have constructed a future city that is both terrifying and alluring. Using an iPhone or iPad, one can cruise the streets of Mississauga, encountering tucked away locations where radio dramas play out the future. For your listening pleasure, we’ve included those soundclips and photos from a recent tour in this post. You can also download the app for your iPhone here.

You can learn more about some of the process behind the work here and here.

Introduction

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Community Commons

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Recycling Op

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Sphere, Globe, Dome

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Reclaiming the Landscape

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Forced Retirement Communities