Station North Ave Drift

Station North Avenue walking tours a drifting success

After gathering around the kiosk and handing out maps, we drifted through through the New Public Sites of North Avenue. Among four varied tours, one night, three day, three warm, one cold, we faced a perpendicular extreme, indulged retail adventure and climbed an enlightened elevation - all in the name of radical pedestrianism. Full project page here, more pictures at newpublicsites.org.

Join us for New Public Sites - Station North Avenue, a series of free walking tours through seven collections of invisible sites and overlooked architectural and psychic features along North Avenue in the Station North Arts District.

New Public Sites - Station North Avenue

Organized in conjunction with the Invited: Celebration Station
October 21 - November 11, 2012
MICA Studio Center Gallery
Sheila & Richard Riggs and Leidy galleries
113 W. North Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21201

Reception and Graduate Studio Center Open House
Sunday, October 21, 2–4 pm, followed by walking tour at 4pm

New Public Sites - Station North Avenue is free walking tour through seven collections of invisible sites and overlooked architectural and psychic features along North Avenue between Greenmount and Howard Streets. Using terms and ideas from the New Public Sites field guide and free walking tour maps available in the gallery, participants are invited to drift through Station North, identify different types of “invisible” public spaces and experiences, and then upload them to newpublicsites.org. Along the way, the tour features places such as a billboard-framed vacant lot identified as "Clear Channel Commons", North Avenue's impressive median strip, which is likened to "Barrier Islands", plus a selection of Anniversary List businesses. The ongoing New Public Sites project pushes pedestrian agency, interprets aspects of the everyday and investigates the negotiable nature of the built environment.

WALK TOUR SCHEDULE
Sunday, October 21 – 4pm
Saturday, October 27, 3pm
Saturday, November 3, 3pm

All walking tours are free and open to the public
Meet at the New Public Sites Kiosk
MICA Graduate Studio Center
113 W. North Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21201

Download the free map, interact and find out more at newpublicsites.org/station-north-avenue.

Spontaneous Interventions

"Spontaneous Interventions", the official U.S. presentation at the 13th International Venice Architecture Biennale, represents a spirited movement for improving cities through DIY innovation and playful direct action. Walking through Venice's tree-shaded Giardini during the preview of the Venice Architecture Biennale, the first thing I saw as I approached the American pavilion was a huge projection of my face framed by the Palladian building's central entry way. I couldn't help but laugh - how did my work as a radically pedestrian, New Public Sites tour guide end up here, in Venice, as one of many incredible projects representing of the United States?  The dérive will always take us to unexpected places...

Read more at newpublicsites.org...

Names vs The Nothing: NPS on 99% Invisible

99% Invisible premieres episode on New Public Sites

A "tiny" radio show about design and architecture
explores the Neverending Story of naming
invisible sites in everyday public space. 

Click here to listen to, "Names vs The Nothing", 99% Invisible's latest story by
producer Sam Greenspan featuring Graham Coreil-Allen on New Public Sites.

Just beyond east Baltimore's resounding I-95 - O'Donnell Street overpass lies a sprawling estate of weathered travel centers, including an unexpectedly beautiful grassy hill turned Elightened Elevation that serves as an unglamorous gateway for Baltimore's Chinatown bus travelers. 99% Invisible radio show producer Sam Greenspan and I recently rode our bikes to this marginal zone and explored some of its invisbile sites and overlooked features. Created with help from the show's host Roman Mars, "Names vs The Nothing" uses the storyline from 1984 epic fantasty film, The Neverending Story as a metaphor for the New Public Sites investigation. Go to 99percentinvisible.org to listen to the episode online, download the mp3 and subscribe to the podcast with iTunes.

If you like 99% Invisible and want to hear more independently produced public radio, please considering donating the the 99% Invisible Kickstarter. The campaign only has three days left to reach its goal of 5000 supporters!

New Public Sites in the Venice Architecture Biennale and Online

Artist Graham Coreil-Allen celebrates the inclusion of his New Public Sites interventionist walking tours project in the Venice Architecture Biennale with the rollout of a new platform for online participation: newpublicsites.org.

New Public Sites in Spontaneous Interventions
U.S. Pavilion at the 13th International Venice Architecture Biennale
August 29 - November 25, 2012
New Public Sites’ new online platform: newpublicsites.org

[Baltimore, MD - June 2012] -- Situated within disparate zones of overlap, contradiction, ambiguity and interstice, the ongoing New Public Sites project consists of playful walking tours, radical maps and poetic typology that investigate the ways in which invisible sites and overlooked features exist within our everyday environment. The New Public Sites walking tours will be included in Spontaneous Interventions: Design Actions for the Common Good, the official U.S. presentation at the 13th International Venice Architecture Biennale. Organized by commissioner and curator Cathy Lang Ho of the Institute for Urban Design, with Ned Cramer and David van der Leer, the exhibition features an array of direct action strategies for improving the urban public realm, represented through a system of interactive hanging banners and pedestrian installations. More details to follow on New Public Sites walking tours in Venice later this summer.

From Venice to virtual, New Public Sites is expanding radical pedestrian discourse both internationally and online. Created in collaboration with artist, curator and designer Tobey Albright, newpublicsites.org is the living collection of recent and on-going New Public Sites investigations into our everyday public spaces. The online typology organizes these liminal public spaces into a system of sites, components, qualities and concepts, indexed and described through maps, terms, definitions, images and videos. The scalable website can be viewed both on computers and smart devices. New Public Sites walking tour participants and the public at large are invited to explore the collection, comment on types and upload their own sites and definitions to the growing interactive map.


More info at:
http://newpublicsites.org/
http://spontaneousinterventions.com/

Visionary Crosswalks / Transmodern / May 18 & 19

Visionary Crosswalks

Transmodern Festival

Alley-OOOPs!

Tyson Alley and Mulbery Street

7:30pm-12am, May 18 & 19, 2012

Join me for a night of radical pedestrianism through Visionary Crosswalks in the Alley OOOPs! show at this year's Transmodern Festival. Visionary Crosswalks is a direct action crosswalk tracing the casual path that jaywalkers regularly take when crossing Mulberry Street while walking down Tyson Alley along in the west side of downtown Baltimore. Colorful adhesive tape will alert motorists to the festival goers parading pathway as they walk to the D:Center at Maryland Art Place from Current Gallery and back. Serving as a voluntary crossing guard, complete with hand-made uniform, I will assist pedestrians as they enjoy their downtown art drift.

View Larger Map 
Transmodern 2012 info here.

The Forthcoming Reality of Holly Whyte Way

Image courtesy of NYC DOT via The New York Observer.

Only six months after the Arcade Parade, Holly Whyte Way is officially becoming a reality! This week the New York City DOT announced its proposal to connect the privately-owned public plazas and arcades that run from 51st to 57th Street, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. Since then, Community Board 5' Transportation Committee has approved the plans for crosswalks, stop signs and warning markers that will alert motorists to yield to pedestrians moving along what will be soon be officially known as 6½ Avenue. Needless to say, Friends of Privately Owned Public Space is celebrating. Special thanks to Matt Chaban for his wall-to wall coverage of the development. More details below...



Meet Me on 6½th Avenue: DOT Planning Public Promenade Through Middle of Midtown Towers / Matt Chaban, NY Observer, 3.26.12

Paving the Way for 6½th Avenue: Midtown Community Board Committee Gives Pedestrian Plan Unanimous Support / Matt Chaban, NY Observer, 3.26.12
For Walkers, a Sixth-and-a-Half Ave. May Take Shape / Matt Flegenheimer, The New York Times, 3.29.12
Plans Unveiled for a Secret Boulevard in Midtown Manhattan / Kelly Chan, Achitizer Blog, 3.29.12