Ad Hoc Infrastructures.
location:
New York, New York.
funding:
New York State Council on the Arts, 2008 Individual Research Grant.
date/status:
2008/ongoing.
key points:
investigation, design research, infrastructure, building technologies, scaffolding, speculation, drawing.
Scaffolding is a permanent yet transient component of the urban landscape. Ad hoc infrastructures is an ongoing project funded by a 2008 grant from the New York State Council on the Arts. The goal is to explore scaffolding’s exploitation and effects on urban sites through direct observation and to perform design research to explore and present new potentialities for its deploy-ment. At a time when infrastructure is increasingly being privatized and conservative economic forces are extending protections to capital markets on an unfathomable scale, the project is part speculation and part manifesto.
Can the public sector benefit at the infrastructural level from vestiges of the current construction boom? Can private infrastructure be appropriated for public use? Where is the boundary between public domain and private infra-structure? Can this relatively simple building technology serve other needs? Can scaffolding maintain utility without the city? Can scaffolding outgrow the city?
This project served as the basis for two additional research projects included here: Landscapes of Quarantine and Speculative Squatting.