The manifestation of a massive woodpile was an immediate indication of larger systems at play on this small family-owned farm.  They could not be ignored.

The most obvious midwestern agricultural system that defines our landscape and the arrangement of Black’s Heritage Farm is the Jeffersonian grid.  This rigid and calculated system seems to align the landscape due north, but true north actually lies fifteen degrees east of Jeffersonian north. 

The US agricultural system operates today at a much larger scale than that of the local farmer’s market.  The small farm is simply unable to compete with the modern day industrialized farm.  These agricultural factories have depleted the topsoil of nutrients originally provided by native ecosystems.  Crops are grown in an artificial system that depends on oil-rich fertilizers, which in turn pollute our soil and water. 

All of this is in pursuit of yield, 82% of which is raw product, not fit for human consumption, but is used for feed, fuel, or must be further processed to become a food product.  This system is completely inaccessible to the individual.

THE MODERN CHOCOLATE CAKE
12 lbs white Elmer’s glue
18 lbs high fructose corn syrup
1/2 ton fine topsoil

Mix ingredients by hand.  Knead until thoroughly combined.  Pack dough into foil cake pan.  Flip and lay to dry.

This installation was produced in collaboration with Becca Stephenson and Joe Biegger.  It was made in the spring of 2017 as a work of Black Contemporary.  Black Contemporary is an exploratory laboratory on a rural, small family farm for the investigation and manipulation of materials.  It is run by artist and architect Pete Goché.  The grain drying facility was built in 1979 and currently serves as the studio for site-specific installations every spring.

In a society emerging from one of the worst economic crises in history, American citizens now find themselves occupying one end or the other of an ever-growing wealth gap. This sociopolitical condition is most often understood as the massive income difference between the top 1% and the following 99%. This issue is well understood within the construction of the country’s economic and political spectrum, but is far more ambiguous in the built environment.

In academia, architecture is taught and understood as our creativity given as gift onto the people. However, in practice, the realization of architecture is quite the opposite. Our art and science is implemented according to the interest of wealthy clients. Thus, the 1% hold a monopoly, which flows out and down from their highrises and into the public’s space. Consequently, such a strong inflicted visions attempt to homogenize very diverse groups of people into one single entity. In San Francisco, the ramifications of this vision can be seen quite clearly. Those who do not fall in line with their ideal city are under continuous prosecution or fall out.

As individuals, we each experience San Francisco in a unique light. Each person occupies bits and pieces of the whole. To them, San Francisco exists in the places they have experienced. The city’s identity lies with the person’s perceptions and memories of each place, cast onto the physical world. In this nature, the city contains endless impressions and hopes for its future; it is projected onto itself. This infinite amount of San Franciscos are essential to its life. Their clashing realities and aspirations customize a complexity which has allowed differences to flourish throughout San Francisco’s history. This is the city of Goldenness: a place where conflicts strike and resolve. A place where people find common ground in a single geographic location but are ever restless.

The realities of a capitalistic society put some of these aspirations above others. Emphasis is on one fragment of identities, which does not listen or even acknowledge the existence of differing perspectives. The power, the volume of voices is driven by the flow of capital through the streets of San Francisco. 1% of our population’s opinion is now more important than the welfare of the general public. Through gradual decay of our civil liberties, they shape and define our

lifestyle, and without anyone listening, their template is dividing. We do not see these liberties disappear in a sudden earthquake, but instead they fade just as Karl seeps. A choking fog created by the very people we rely on to protect us. Minor tweaks to codes and refinement of regulation after regulation suffocate our ability to fight the regulatory oppression that is subtly falling down from above, while our public space for interaction is stripped from below.

In producing a new typology, we attack the current condition. The voice of the people can no longer be entrusted to our government. Architecture as a profession must fundamentally change in order to make a significant difference. How can we say we offer a service, which we see as right, when it only fulfills a select few with deep pockets? Can we not help close this gapping hole, which is fragmenting society by the day?

Architecture must protest its surrounding framework. It must break out and disrupt the political and social establishments, which are restricting. It must now become a profession of activism, a profession that protects the 99%, a practice that stands for the individuals that form an ever fluctuating and beautifully deep city. Our architecture of protest will attack the binding codes, which have shut us out from spaces of communication and collaboration. Our architecture of protest will take privatized land and throw open the gates which have kept us out. Our architecture of protest will support these divided communities and cultivate with them. Our architecture of protest will return the city to prosperous chaos, tipping the supposed balance that has put it in a destructive gridlock. Our architecture of protest will be specks of gold within the muddy riverbed, catching the eye of the discipline, beginning the next rush to goldenness.

82% of American agricultural land is dedicated to growing crops that are not consumable by humans.  Much of it goes to livestock feed or must be processed in order to become food.  Grain corn is raw material for an industry that manufactures food substitutes.  Most of the corn grown in Iowa becomes feed.  And yet, countless hours of labor, unquantifiable amounts of energy, and immeasurable numbers of resources, both renewable and not, are poured into this process of “food making.”

Thirty-six pounds of feed corn. 
Sixteen pounds of royal icing. 
Hand packed into a cubic foot. 
Left to be devoured.

A simple, three-dimensional cabinet serves as a conceptual framework that expresses the spatial nature of one of the drying bins within the host facility.  It is an individually created, exquisitely crafted object.

This work was produced for Black Contemporary.  Black Contemporary is an exploratory laboratory on a rural, small family farm for the investigation and manipulation of materials.  It is run by artist and architect Pete Goché.  The grain drying facility was built in 1979 and currently serves as the studio for site-specific installations every spring.

Disrupt/Displace is an exploration of the spatial implications of the construction of the Bakken Pipeline.  It is a response to Aravena's call from Reporting From the Front and was presented at the Venice Biennale Sessions in October of 2016.  It is a collaborative dialogue and work from over fifty students from Iowa State University and Universita degli studi Roma Tre.

Excerpt from Datum No. 8 on the work:
A contingency of students from Iowa State and Roma Tre identified the Bakken Oil Pipeline, specifically the portion that cuts through our home of Ames, Iowa, as a FRONT and a field of action to REPORT.  This REPORT is a record of a dialogue about the complexities of architecture's relationship to political and social issues.

Many of the 'fields of action' in our world today are complex issues, and the Bakken Pipeline is no different.  The conflict surrounding the pipeline is intensely political, but is also spatial.  Any build or designed space may address certain, specific needs of the pipeline, or conversely, those it affects.  However, we cannot see a way in which architecture helps solve the problems arising because of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Through transportable models, we reinterpreted the unique spatial issues present during and after the construction of the Bakken Pipeline at a human scale.  Rather than providing a clear answer, this process stirred up additional frustrations, questions, and concerns about architecture as an agent of social change.  What follows is a RECORD of this dialogue:

The representation of the physical conditions of Iowa and the Bakken Pipeline stem from The Land Ordinance of 1785, which established a system of nested grids that would extend across the land of the United States.  This Euclidean subdivision of the land was a total geometric system, applied without consideration for culture, environment, or occupation.

The process for this geometric installation included arrangement, disruption, and the displacement of the established grid.  To exhibit the 'front' in Iowa, the displaced grid condition is constructed and represented through a transportable, repeatable, cardboard unit.  The unit is crafted in three sections with multi-directional scores, which allows the piece to twist into a three dimensional form as well as lay flat for transportation efficiency.  Upon completion in Ames, the process of disassembling, packing, and transport of the installation to bring to Venice began.  To do so, the units were packed into carry-on suitcases and flown across the Atlantic.  Each of the twenty-eight students that traveled to Venice from Iowa brought 25-50 pieces with them, for a total of around 900 units for the installation in Venice.

The aggregation and disruption of the gridded units reflects the consequences of the Bakken Pipeline, invoking a larger discussion about architecture's role in displacement, not only of people and space, but also intangible dimensions of the human condition (regarding social, political, economical, and environmental conditions).  The disruption of land and the displacement of people as a result of energy infrastructure construction is a global issue.  It is crucial to understand the spatial effects of these types of displacements, as they will need to be addressed by citizens of the future.

This is a reminder that this REPORT is not an abstraction, but rather a human and social condition with far-reaching consequences beyond the spatial concerns.