11.19 Meeting Reactions

Site Investigation 'conclusions'
This week/next meeting agenda:
Complete/near complete diagrams of the following
Edge conditions
Interesting areas
'Nolli' map
Where I almost got hit
Where photos were taken
Why sites/details are interesting
Cultural pockets
All with muted palette/grayscale for clarity
Site images as they pertain to 'Making Strange'
Reading offering the total freedom of such a wide variety of sustained, continually changing artwork and infrastructure, as well as a tourist/community/cultural base to allow it to continue its redevelopment towards the center of the yard.


Note: Norflk Southern corporation actually had a similar site in Lancaster, PA that the director of PR was telling us about. The site divided the city into differing sides forming a large, detrimental void in what turned into a rough city. The heads/ higher-ups of NS Corp got together with some city and redevelopment committees and formulated a plan to solve this. The solution actually involved NSC moving their site approximately 2 miles to one side, allowing the city to 'heal the wound' the train yard had formed. A possibility to be pitched for the Reading Yard. The tracks can remain to allow for cargo/material/artwork transport, and, if successful enough down the road, the implementation of passenger lines to and from the city (and to other major cities) as a revamping of tourism and sustainable aspects of public transport. This can also help with the endlessly rising costs of fuel, etc.

Other things that may help/come into play:
"The walls between art and engineering [architecture] exist only in our minds."
-Theo Jansen

The 'scruffy' neighborhood of immigrants and artists is where the most diverse/'beautiful' specimens of urban art/spraypaint graffiti were lining the walls (Kreuzberg)
-Sounds a lot like the Reading situation, tons of graffiti, large immigrant population base, great possibility of artistic expression and cultural identity. Opens the door for artwork that can continually change with the changes in population base/incomes/economic influences, et.

These are pretty rough thoughts so far, but I will work out the kinks more tonight and this week/weekend.