our site:

built by joseph congdon in 1792, and added to in (at least) three different eras that followed, this building at 3 - 9 steeple street is the oldest standing industrial building in downtown providence, and in sincere need of rehabilitation.

we will visit the building on tuesday, february 26th, touring the spaces of two restaurants and a cafe that occupy the ground floors. we'll measure and document those spaces, and begin to piece together the plan and section of the building.

dress warmly tuesday, and bring tape measures and clipboards..

assignment 1

assignment 1: due tuesday february 26

Read the essay ‘The Dialectics of Inside and Outside’ by Gaston Bachelard.

Build part of an enclosure that defines for you an inside from an outside.

Choose a material that has significance to you in terms of the way it can be manipulated to generate different qualities, i.e. texture, surface, depth, thinness, openness, opacity, etc. Identify the scale at which this material is working.

Use the material. Manipulate it, and in working with it, discover or generate a relationship between the ‘inside’ and the ‘outside’, as you define them.

Articulate in writing the various qualities you are interested in, and how the material you are working with manifests them. Remember that this example can be specific to one idea, and may not encompass the entire range of possibilities that the concepts inspire.

If so inspired, you may make several enclosures that evoke different ideas of ‘inside and outside’.

You may work with up to three materials in relationship to one another.