ASSOCIATION 11 Draws Parallels Across AAP

ASSOCIATION 11 (2020), cover image (left) with a diagram (right) of the parallel concept of time, number of projects, and disciplinary/trans-disciplinary subject matter included in the latest volume. graphics / provided

ASSOCIATION 11, AAP's latest student-organized, designed, and edited publication that integrates works created across the college's three disciplines, has been released and is now in stock at The Cornell Store. 

ASSOCIATION 11  (2020) includes a relational map where projects are organized by color to demonstrate relationships across the featured work.

The editorial team for volume 11 used the concept of the parallel as an organizing principle for sequencing the text and images of included projects, establishing lines for presenting subjects that are often equidistant and concurrent as well as also complimentary, analogous, or interdependent.

ASSOCIATION 11 (2020) sample spread of two project renderings. A winning Urban Land Institute project titled Montage (left) advised by two CRP faculty members and an interdisciplinary team of students, and an adaptive reuse plan titled Change Factory for the vacant Morse Chain building in Ithaca, New York (right) that was created for Assistant Professor Aleksander Mergold's studio Design Plan 4.0. images/ provided

According to the head editors, Jacob Taylor Soley, Jingxin Yang (editors-in-chief), Turner Andrasz, Sean Gowin, Polen Güzelocak, Samuel Price, and Carolina Zuniga, "Each of the three departments that make up Cornell AAP—architecture, art, and planning—represents a parallel. Each project presented emerges from its own departmental tradition. The goal of this volume, however, is to reveal affinities among our departments that may not be immediately obvious."

Architecture

ASSOCIATION 11 (2020), a full spread of Ithaca Change Factory, a project by former architecture students Madeleine Eggers (B.Arch. '19), Ariella Shojakhani (M.Arch '18), and Jeff Drexel (B.Arch.'18) for Design Plan 4.0, an option studio taught by Assistant Professor Alexandr Mergold. images / provided

"DP 4.0 Studio took on the rehabilitation of Ithaca's now-defunct Morse Chain Factory, a behemoth of a building that had been tacked on to and expanded continuously between 1900 and 1960. When the factory went out of business, the building was deemed too toxic and cumbersome to bulldoze, and was thus preserved by virtue of its own mass. The studio’s aim was to engage it in a different way from the usual top-down masterplan method, instead altering the existing fabric of the massive building with architectural interventions that leveraged the structural redundancies overlapping of time periods and building methods. These alterations were envisioned to be enacted in a grassroots, piecemeal fashion—in much the same way the factory came into being. 

Our intervention took the form of an 'adventure playground"' as a rehabilitation method: the idea that it might be therapeutic to swing a hammer and knock down some walls, or engage in a shared construction project with a bunch of strangers in pursuit of a common goal. The other component of the intervention was the opening of the factory roof via a massive system of drive wheels and pulleys, turning the space into a venue for concerts by night and a semi-outdoor cultural space by day, sensationalizing the once-overlooked factory."

Art

ASSOCIATION 11 (2020), a full spread of a body of work titled Frame of Reference by current art student Sam Price (B.F.A. '21). 

"This concentration of work is inspired by our innate desire for connection, which I look to accomplish with visual representations of perception guided by components that we all share: the body and the mind. Our species understands drawing to be an act which involves making marks to express entities or ideas. I view the universe to be a physical extension of this principle, whereby all phenomena are inherently drawings conducted by the ebbs and flows of mass from energy. The body is one of these drawing tools; but it is the tool by which we fathom all that is observable. When I paint, I seek to express the highly visceral and psychological underpinnings behind one’s grasp of reality. Whether it be the molecular structures that influence how we feel, the day-to-day momentary glimpses that become embedded in our subconsciouses, or our interpretations of entities based on our memories, the content of my art is driven by a philosophy that humanity is running on the same software, but under vastly different conditions from person to person. It is with this mindset that I hope to unite observers of my work in realizing that they are more similar than they think." 

Planning

ASSOCIATION 11 (2020), a full spread of Montage, the first prize–winning project in the 16th ULI Hines Student Competition by Peter Romano (M.R.P/M.P.S. '19), Paul Heidweiller (M.P.S. '18), Rawinthira Narksusook (M.P.S.'18), Gary Esposito (M.Arch. 2018), and Jamie Mitchell (M.Arch.'18); advised by planning Assistant Professor Suzanne Lanyi Charles and Visiting Critic Mitch Glass. 

"Montage is a transformational mixed-use development at the junction of Toronto's Downtown and East End neighborhoods. The project is an environmentally sustainable cultural hub that integrates cinema, creative industries, and Toronto's park system to create a unique and lively 24/7 neighborhood. 

Akin to clipping together film scenes, Montage fuses surrounding communities and creative thinkers through spaces for the public and venues for theatre and music. Sunlight park reclaims over five acres of waterfront park space adjoining Corktown Common and provides panoramic views of Downtown Toronto. Underneath the park is an engineered flood mitigation and water recycling system that uses stormwater overflow to create dynamic seasonal landscapes. At the center of the development, the Nell Shipman Cinema Centre and Broadview Plaza integrate the recreational, cultural, and professional elements of the district. 

Montage is the catalyst for the East End’s renaissance. Its design fills the gap for “missing middle” (mid-rise) development and provides a transition in scale from Toronto’s low-rise neighborhoods to high-rise buildings. It softens the edges of East Harbour's towers, inviting residents from the neighboring Leslieville, East Chinatown, and Regent Park to spend the day shopping, and working, and the evenings dining, socializing, and watching the Toronto International Film Festival's 'Best Picture' movie." 

ASSOCIATION is a student-designed and edited publication that gathers work from students, faculty, staff, and alumni for a single semi-annual volume. For each publication, the student editorial team carefully curates yearly submissions so that each volume might serve as an anthology of the work produced by the AAP community, as well as perhaps a record and a source of inspiration. 
 

The ASSOCIATION 11 head editorial team includes: 

• Jacob Taylor Soley (B.S. URS '19), editor-in-chief
• Jingxin Yang (B.Arch.'21), editor-in-chief
• Sam Price (B.F.A. '21), managing editor
• Carolina Zuniga (B.Arch. '23), manager of production
• Polen Guzelocak (B.Arch. '22), director of design
• Turner Andrasz (B.Arch.'23), director of marketing and outreach

To find out more about ASSOCIATION visit association.aap.cornell.edu or email association@cornell.edu.

To purchase the most recent volume in its complete, hard-copy form please visit The Cornell Store.