This project is the exhibition design for SpontaneousInterventions | Design Actions for the Common Good at the US Pavilion for the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale. The challenge was to display 124 projects with a strategy related to the content. Immediately it was clear that there was not enough wall surface to exhibit the projects conventionally. It was also requested that the projects be understood through a relationship to both historical precedents and editorial essays. Our solution, comprised of three components: a floor graphic, suspended banners, and counterweights, uses the ceiling and the floor to create a participatory experience.

The content highlights a movement of designers acting on their own initiative to solve problematic urban situations. The work is provisional and improvisational; part guerrilla tactic, part activist. The challenge of hanging 124 projects, and the solution of hanging 124 projects, are closely related. We needed enough space to show the content and the surface area of the walls was not enough. We wanted to free the projects from the walls of the institution, literally and conceptually. The installation invites people to participate physically to pull ideas from the sky. The intent was to capture the spirit of people taking charge of their own surroundings in order to make change. We also believed that the author and size of the project was not as important as the collective voice. Each project’s banner was equal in size and the location within the field would be random. These design decisions were used to convey not the individual, but instead the voice of the collective movement. We were aware that many visitors will be visually exhausted by the time they enter the US pavilion. Therefore it was important to us to provide multiple levels of experience: the simple walk through , but also in-depth information for the lingering visitor. We were conscious that few can absorb 124 projects. This reinforced our desire to create an atmosphere first and to provide non-linear information resource second.

Freecell’s work experiments with ideas of physicality and perception. This interest enabled us to design a kinetic installation where visitors interact with information. The vastness of the content was not only a spatial problem; it also had the potential of overwhelming the viewer. Recalling a great hall with the coat-of-arms flags, we hung the project banners overhead suspended from a structure holding them close to the ceiling. Visitors can simply walk through the galleries under the banners getting a cursory view or if they desire more information, they can reach up and pull a project banner down for more detailed information. These flags are not out-of-reach conquests; instead they are actionable strategies that can be enacted to create change. The walls are empty except for a datum of counterweights, one per banner. Printed on each counterweight is the issue and when the banner is pulled, its corresponding counterweight raises to reveal the solution. Each action has a reaction. With the projects overhead, the floor is used as a navigable map. This carpet provides historical information which give context to the projects. The viewer, standing on the floor with a hand on a banner, becomes the physical connection between the past and the present. The dynamic exchange between strangers, when one visitor pulls one banner lifting its counterweight across the room near another visitor causing them to read new information, embodies the intent within content of the exhibition.

Our focus was on the experience of the visitor. The intent was to deliver a clear message for the quick visitor, but also allow the lingering visitor to obtain more information. First we strategized plan arrangements in order to erode the reading of the Beaux Arts Villa. In plan the pavilion is a symmetrical U with two galleries on each side and a central rotunda entry. Since we envisioned the content as a group, despite different authors, we needed to prevent fragmentation. In order to use the interior of four galleries as one space, we arranged the orientation of the rows as one cohesive field which continues from one gallery to the next and erases the thresholds dividing the galleries. We relocated the entry/exits off center, providing a linear sequence when moving through the interior.. The view from the entrance once sees the front of the banners: a field of color banded hues. These colors represent their coded typologic ingredients. The disparate projects are united through color, read as a collective voice rather than individual projects done by individuals. The unity of the banners allows the visitors’ to direct their attention to the floor for orientation while simultaneously drawing them inside the gallery to seek out the backside of the banners. The backside of the banner is the description, facts, and images of the project. To read the text, the viewer is invited to pull the banner down from the ceiling. This slight physical act allows the viewer to interact with the environment and to consider actions within a greater context. In order to understand the mechanics and scale of the banners, we made full-scale prototypes. We needed to balance the available height in the gallery with the goal of walking comfortably below the banners. We invited a range of people to walk under the banner to confirm head clearance and also test reaching the banner to confirm maximum height. We also tested different pulleys and ropes, varying in size and materials, to understand friction, aesthetics, and sound. We decided to use a large drive at the top of the banner to avoid twisting and spinning. For tracking the rope back to the counterweight on the wall we used a family of sail blocks. The rope we selected was a parachute cord. The counterweight was a custom steel box which was filled with marble sand allowing easy calibration. We also tested materials for the banner. High resolution printing is easy on paper, but paper did not have the right tactile quality nor resilience. It was important that the banners were more akin to flags than digital prints. Ultimately we used an Ultraflex product:DSS, designed for exterior use, because it could be printed on both sides. The final details are simple, but precise and had a clear economy of means.

This exhibition is paradigm-shifting and marks a change in both the type of work and method of display in the US Pavilion. Typically four to six singular designers’ work is presented through drawings, models, and videos. This year with over a hundred designers presented and by creating an installation, the exhibition design was experiential. The content of the show was born out of the energy and willfulness of people not willing to wait for someone to do something for them. It was imperative to us that these efforts be acknowledged beyond the printed words and images on display; the visitors are invited to act. It is a hope that this may, in some way, spark involvement in communities or at the least, create support for these efforts after visiting the exhibition. Beyond an overreaching architects’ utopian vision, these actions are by the citizens (designers / architects / neighbors) who are finding ways to create urban change. The goal is not to say that the future of cities will be solved by these tactics, instead it is the energy and effort in these projects that can shape new relationships to our environment. Shedding a light on this movement, mostly executed through limited means, is intended to educate and empower.