ofThings: Experiments in Object Mobility
24 February - 13 March 2020
Biography
A graduate of University of Kansas School of Architecture and Urban Design and Cranbrook Academy of Art, Architect Dr Douglas Pancoast has worked for firms including Richard Meier and Partners, 1100 Architect, BlackBox Studio at SOM, and agency.com. His work has been shown in the Chicago-based exhibitions Art in the Urban Garden, Mystique: Space,Technology, and Craft and Speculative Chicago; and in Scale at the Architectural League of New York and the National Building Museum, Washington, DC. His projects have been featured in Architectural Record, Architecture, A.P.+, and The Architectural Review, and in the book Young Architects: Scale.
Dr Pancoast has lectured widely on his own work and on the topic of transdisciplinary education, and has served as a guest critic at Columbia University, Illinois Institute of Technology, University of Illinois at Chicago, and Parsons School of Design.
He examines how large, public data sets (economic, environmental, social, cultural, civic) are a context for creative practice and is a co-investigator for the Urban Sciences Research Coordination Network, an award meant to build inter-institutional collaborative research capacity around the subject of "big data" for social benefit. Since 2012 Pancoast has been a frequent co-investigator in the newly established Urban Center for Computation and Data, specifically providing architectural knowledge, and visualization expertise for a network of associated projects.
Summary
During his visit Dr Pancoast will be examining object mobility, specifically: he will activate a cohort of researchers using custom made data collecting tools, to engage Bristol and examine how shared use mobility modes, mobility as a service modes, connected mobility and active transportation modes might be engaged for the mobilization of objects - with emphasis on pedestrian movement and object portage without dedicated motorized fleets.
- Visit 1 (3 weeks) will conclude with a public event, at the Engine Shed, for sharing initial findings and inviting community comment. Excursion data (qualitative and quantitative; environmental and temporal; location, duration, payload, etc) will be organized and visualized as simple preliminary maps and schematic diagrams and presented in a forum where visitors are invited to comment on the choreographies, co-develop new freight / logistic taxonomies and suggest new ways of engaging the mobile city.
- Visit 2 (1 week) will conclude with a final public exhibition event at the Engine Shed. Leading up to the visit 2, with University of Bristol support, Pancoast will work remotely and devise and produce finished maps and models, richer media and more thoroughly resolved visualization material for exhibition of the of Things: Experiments in Object Mobility project.
Douglas Pancoast research project (Office document, 21kB)
Dr Pancoast is hosted by Theo Tryfonas, Associate Professor of Smart Cities & Urban Innovation
