descours 2009 TOUR 8 New Orleans Hale Itinerant.mov

Tour 08 DesCours PODCAST for "Itinerant Home" by Mary Hale, part of DesCours 2009 Installation series sponsored by the New Orleans Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

Concept:
Four years ago, Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans in a deadly pass. Four years later, her destruction endures, but not for a lack of effort on the part of local and national groups, led by citizens and celebrities alike. These stalwart philanthropists nobly toil to rebuild the city and to provide homes for those displaced by the floods. Nonetheless, many of their projects break ground in flood-zones without adequately safeguarding against future disasters. Meanwhile, contemporary architects and urbanists obsess over climate change and its rising tides that are projected to flood our costal cities. Their design proposals range from the practical to the absurd, but few of their ideas take shape beyond the drawing board and beyond the pages of glossy magazines. New Orleans is a hotbed of both confusion and possibility.

In response, Itinerant Home provides a focal point to discuss these possibilities. The project takes the form of a wearable, inflatable house that shelters multiple wearers as they work together to navigate through the historic neighborhoods and water bodies of New Orleans. The project draws from artist Lucy Ortas early critical work, Refugee Wear, which re-imagines bivouac structures as wearable shelters. In so doing, the popular notion of body-wear extends to include shelter. Like Ortas Refugee Wear, Itinerant Home expands this definition of body-wear. Only in this case, body-wear goes beyond the gallery to be seen and worn by the public of New Orleans in the context of their historic building stock. In this context, the project will symbolize and stimulate new ways of thinking about the architecture of home and the future of the city. It is a playful venue for conversation and exchange, literally tailored to fit people of all ages.

Bio:
MARY HALE is a recent graduate of MITs School of Architecture and Planning where she completed a Masters degree in Architectural Design. While at MIT, Hale developed considerable experience designing and constructing one-to-one scale projects meant to engage the human body. A few recent examples include Squidwurt, the eight-legged cephalopod stool, the Structural Quilt, a working solar powered prototype for an LED-lit, textile building cladding that was realized in collaboration with Chienchuan Chen and Marissa Cheng under the aegis of architect Sheila Kennedy, and finally The Monumental Helium Inflatable Wearable Floating Body Mass. The latter project represents Hales experience and credibility as a designer and maker of highly innovative wearable inflatables. Body Mass has been recognized in international art, design and technology publications ranging from the MIT Technology Review to Arcade to Clam, a Parisian fashion and culture magazine.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• DesCours
• DesCours 2009
• AIA New Orleans
• Architecture
• Design
• Urbanism
• podcast