UNPLANNED: Research and Experiments at the Urban Scale



25 March 2010 – 2 July 2010

Opening Reception Thursday March 25, 2010 5PM – 8PM

Pacific Design Center (PDC) Suite B208 | West Hollywood, CA | 90069



SUPERFRONT is proud to present UNPLANNED: Research and Experiments at the Urban Scale, the first SUPERFRONT LA exhibit of 2010.



Just as the discipline of architecture faces a re-imagination of itself in this era of slow-motion global capitalism, the human population finds itself crossing the threshold to a predominantly urban existence. Many of the basic tenets underpinning urban planning – Cartesian geometry, programmatic taxonomy, contextualism – have been subject to skeptical investigation and rebellion in architecture throughout the past decade. Yet conventional urban planning continues, the discipline of urban planning operating much as it has since the 1960s (if not the 1860s). Leveraging an interdisciplinary focus, UNPLANNED: RESEARCH AND EXPERIMENTS AT THE URBAN SCALE boldly presents a collection of radical methods for envisioning and producing space at the urban scale.



A group exhibit with more than twenty participants, UNPLANNED spans architecture, urban design, industrial design, conceptual art, and cartography to present an array of experimental work at the urban scale. Multi-disciplinary practitioners address emergent urbanism, “wild building”, and other alternatives to conventional urban planning. The exhibit is curated by SUPERFRONT Founder + Director Mitch McEwen with Associate Curator Cecilia Brock and Gallery Intern Jackie Koenig.



Work is exhibited in multiple formats, from physical models to drawings, animations, software applications, consumer products, and live film. Dealing with urban situations from derelict construction sites to refugee camps, favelas, temporary housing and other contemporary spatial phenomena, the exhibition confronts the current economic crises and larger issues of globalization.



Participants include architectural and urbanist collectives ae.i.ou (San Juan), Salottobuono (Venice), and Tomorrow’s Thoughts Today (London), as well as Francisca Benitez (New York), Benjamin Cadena (Brooklyn), McLain Clutter (University of Michigan TCAUP), Alex Delaunay (New York/Paris), Johanna Ferrer Guldager and Stine Laurberg Hansen (Copenhagen/ Los Angeles), Dennis Maher (Buffalo), curator Mitch McEwen (SUPERFRONT), Nathalie Frankowski and Cruz García of WAI Think Tank (Beijing), Riitta Oittinen (Helsinki), Hyeri Park (Seoul/Delft), Dubravka Sekulić (Belgrade/Maastricht), Alvaro Urbano (Madrid/Berlin), architects AGENCY (New York), Paul Schuette (Los Angeles), Nina Ilieva (Sofia/Los Angeles), John Briscella (Philadelphia), ZellnerPlus (Los Angeles), Darien Williams with INABA (Los Angeles), an advanced architecture studio at Columbia GSAPP taught by Mabel Wilson, and a student workshop from the Southern California Institute of Architecture directed by Michael Pinto of Project Food / LA (Los Angeles).