2024 Galleries

Galleries // 2012 Spark:Communication // SpontaneousInterventions

SpontaneousInterventions

Winner - Silver

Competition: Spark:Communication
Designer: Mr. Erik Adigard - Creative Director
Design Type: Exhibition Graphics & Floor Timeline Exhibit
Website: http://m-a-d.com

Graphic system (color coded banners, publication, website, collateral) and a floor exhibit for SpontaneousInterventions, the American Pavilion installation at the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale, Aug 29 – Nov 25, 2012. The American Pavilion was awarded a special mention for National Participation by the Biennale Jury. SpontaneousInterventions features “124 urban interventions initiated by architects, designers, planners, artists, and everyday citizens that bring positive change to their neighborhoods.” Each project is shown on a banner that functions like a flag, the front charts in color stripes the percentage the project contributes to information (blue), accessibility (orange), community (pink), economy (lime), sustainability (green), and pleasure (cyan). The back includes a brief description and lists the cost, time, number of participants, problem and solution. S.I. was curated by Cathy Lang Ho, with David van der Leer and Ned Cramer. The hanging banner system was conceived by Freecell, and the courtyard “out-door living room” with orange (accessibility coded) seating cubes was created by Interboro. In addition to branding and communications design, M-A-D (Patricia McShane and Erik Adigard) designed the floor exhibit, a history of the ‘city’ timeline that places the 124 projects of SpontaneousInterventions “in a broader historical and cultural context of the evolution of cities.” The floor exhibit is a contextual 10,000 year history of the ‘city.’ Covering the entire Pavilion floor, this five-room installation meanders through time in one continuous stream, each room floor has a unique design representing the time period passing through that room. The timeline dates reflect significant events in the development of the ‘city.’ Also included are curatorial statements about each significant time period, quotations and in-depth sidebars related to timeline entries. Room 1--CITIZENSHIP / The Ancient City 7500BC to 1900: The timeline in this entry room spirals from the center. The text is printed over a stone building block supergraphic. Room 2--EQUITY / Birth of Urbanism 1900 to 1960: The timeline continues in this room in the shape of a New York City-like grid. The text is printed over an image of a major Los Angeles freeway interchange. Room 3--PROTEST / Media & Sprawl 1960 – 1990: The main timeline cuts through thematic mini-timelines (Planning, Architecture, Culture, Technology, Transportation, Society, Ecology, Politics) that expand in every direction. The timeline is printed on a birds-eye view of a massive crowd of people. Room 4--PARTICIPATION / Conversation City 1990 to present: The timeline threads through events, with swirling mini timelines and ends with the final curatorial statement in an arrow shape pointing neat the exit at a poster wall that lists participatory events held by the U.S. Pavilion during the three month exhibition. The timeline in this final room is printed over an image of clouds. This history of the ‘city’ timeline is also threaded through the design M-A-D created for the September 2012 Venice Biennale special issue of ARCHITECT magazine.