The farm-to-table movement represents a profound shift in how food is grown, distributed, and consumed. Rooted in sustainability and the support of local economies, it prioritizes fresh, locally sourced ingredients and fosters direct relationships between producers and consumers. While the concept focuses on food, the spaces where these connections occur are equally important in shaping the experience, highlighting the critical role of architecture.
Every year, over a thousand people complete the 2,192-mile (3528-kilometer) Appalachian Trail between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine. Millions more follow the trail for a shorter stretch by spending time at the countless overlooks, walking along the wooded ridges, or meandering through the small town centers, making this network one of the world's most visited and widely recognized trail corridors. However, the proposal for this expansive trail corridor, originally entered in a 1921 Journal of the American Institute of Architects article by Benton MacKaye, was far from a mere recreational outdoor amenity. This "project in regional planning" was a radical critique of the industrializing modernity that sharpened the divide between expanding cities of the Eastern coast and waning towns of the Appalachian mountains.
Brian MacKay-Lyons is the founding partner of MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects, a professor at Dalhousie University and the founder of Ghost Lab - the now legendary 2-week summer design/build program that took place on his family farm in Nova Scotia from 1994 to 2011. While relentlessly local, Brian's work has been recognized internationally with more than 100 awards, 300 publications and 100 exhibitions. In 2012, the American Institute of Architects recognized the collective work and influence of Ghost with an Institute Honor Award for Architecture.
On August 22nd, 2014 Brian hopped off his tractor and wiped the diesel fuel off his hands to discuss architectural education with Keith and Marie Zawistowski, co-founders of the design/buildLAB at Virginia Tech and partners of OnSite Architecture. Here is an excerpt from their conversation, which was originally published on Inform:
Keith Zawistowski: Your contributions to the discipline of architecture have been both in practice and in education. In 1994, you founded Ghost, an international laboratory that influenced all generations of architects with its simplicity and this affirmation of timeless architectural values of place and craft. It was a pretty bold move and it seems for us like it was a direct reaction to your discontentment with academia and the way architects were being educated. Do you still feel that strongly about the state of architecture education and the profession?
"Architectural education is very abstract." Virginia Tech professors and Rural Studio alumni Keith and Marie Zawistowski sit down to talk about the importance of a hands-on experience, suggesting a fundamental restructuring of curriculums. With projects such as the Masonic Ampitheater, they — together with their students — set out to prove that somethings are simply solved by building. Read the full article here, "What Architecture Schools Get Wrong"
The design/buildLAB at the Virginia Tech School of Architecture + Design has recently released a new documentary by Leon Gerskovic titled Reality Check, a film that chronicles the journey of 16 students as they undergo the design and construction of their Masonic Amphitheatre in Clifton Forge, Virginia. The project was a complete redevelopment of a post-industrial brownfield into a public park and performance space; the video relates how students collaborated with local community and industry experts to bring meaningful architecture to this struggling American rail town.
An inspiring little video from the folks at Virginia Tech that will make you want to get your designer hands dirty - today. The video follows the third-years of 2013 as they build their final project: a bridge. As the co-founder of the lab, Kieth Zawistowski, eloquently says at the video's end, "It doesn't really matter if you ever want to actually build something yourself again, what's important, in this case, is that you've seen the entirety of the process, from conception to realization." If you want to see more from design/buildLAB, check out the project completed by last year's students (which features in the last few minutes of the video): Masonic Ampitheatre.
For those of you that enjoyed our post on the Covington Farmers Market you might enjoy visiting an exhibition that features Jeff Goldberg’s images and the students’ bass wood models of the project at The Virginia Center for Architecture in Richmond, Virginia. The exhibition, ”Design 2011: A Retrospective of Winning Work”, will be held from October 20, 2011 – January 8, 2012.
Additionally, design/buildLAB has been invited to give a lecture to coincide with the exhibit. The lecture, ”Teaching Practice”, will be held at the Richmond Convention Center on Thursday November 3rd from 10:45-12:15. For more information visit: http://www.virginiaarchitecture.org/ae_index.html
More images of the project after the break.
