League Prize 2021: Night 1

In this video, they discuss projects including:

Office e.g.

• An (Im)material Space, a material research project focused on bricks made of elements including soy wax, river gravel, lavender essential oil, and aquamarine dye chunks. After being baked and molded, the bricks were transported and aggregated to create an installation for Space p11 in Chicago.
• Cooked Air: 3 Spec-ulative Kitchens and their Exhalate, an examination of kitchen ventilation and related processes exploring the spatial relationships between implements and appliances that instrumentalize air movement and shape human interaction within the kitchen.
• A Scattered Showroom, part of Things Around Us, the 2018–19 Fellows exhibition at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College. The project “spec-ulates” on contemporary bathroom fixtures and plumbing infrastructures, exposing the technics tucked within the cavity and enclosure of the stud wall.

Studio Barnes

• A Spectrum of Blackness, an installation designed for MoMA exhibition Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America that reimagines vital elements of Black domestic spaces, such as the kitchen spice rack and the social rituals of the front porch.
• Uneasy Lies the Head that Wears a Crown, an installation of chairs fabricated with materials intended to mimic those used to construct shotgun houses in South Florida. The crowns of the back support “are inspired by the crowns donned by Black people across the diaspora… From Sunday Service hats to… the legendary afro-pick,” Barnes wrote in his competition portfolio.
• Delray Beach Pop-Up Porch, a converted shipping container whose motor-operated panels open to provide shared community space. The project references the significant historic and contemporary role the front porch plays in African American culture.

Ivi Diamantopoulou of New Affiliates, who served on the 2021 League Prize jury, introduces the lecture and serves as moderator for the Q&A.