Another Seedbed
From Domesticity to Hospitality
A project by Ignacio G. Galán, Jesse McCormick, and Khoi Nguyen + Julie Tran (Future Projects)

Another Seedbed is a new node in the cultural fabric of New York City. Resulting from the renovation of a space in a former hat factory located in a late 19th Century cast iron building in Brooklyn, the project keeps the impetus of earlier occupations of industrial spaces in the city by facilitating different forms of hospitality through artistic performances and other public events that the owner organizes–countering the tendency towards normative domesticities that characterize current trends in the renovation of former industrial spaces in large metropolises.

Performance artists operating within and along the occupation of lofts in New York City and other postindustrial cities from the 1960s to the 1980s systematically disturbed the construction of intimacy and challenged the notions of property and ownership. Such challenges were also decisive to the habitation of lofts, which questioned the conventional valuation of spaces and the ideologies of domesticity.

The owner and activator of this space had been living in an old industrial space in Bushwick, where he started to organize parties, performances, and other events. These happenings not only probed the boundaries between intimate spaces and public occupations but additionally provided the ground for the formation of social and cultural networks. With such impetus, he imagined a space in which he could live, work, and host other artist friends to develop their work. Neither just a private studio nor an art gallery, the space is equipped to welcome gatherings that operate between a dinner party and a public performance. Artists appropriate the space and become hosts themselves, expanding the communities which the project brings together.

The space will not advertise its performances. Some neighbors might not know of its existence. Others will hear about an event through friends. Some might find themselves there often and will develop networks of neighborliness within it. A number of volumes in red-stained pine plywood, hand-troweled earthen clay plaster, colored MDF, and back-lit smoked polycarbonate with colored wood frames and a host of moving furniture articulate these encounters and choreograph the boundaries that the project negotiates.

Credits:
Architecture: Ignacio G. Galán, Jesse McCormick, and Khoi Nguyen + Julie Tran (Future Projects)
Client: Linden Renz
Location: Brooklyn, New York, USA
Date: 2020-2023
Photography: Imagen Subliminal (Miguel de Guzmán + Rocío Romero)

 

Architects: Ignacio G Galan, Jesse McCormick, Future Projects

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igg – office for architecture New York / Madrid
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Ignacio G. Galán is a New York based architect and scholar, Principal of [igg—office for architecture]. His work considers architecture’s role in the articulation of society. He is particularly concerned with the architectures of residence; their relation to processes of cultural and material circulation and population transience; and the objects, media, and institutions transforming their occupation. The designs of his firm have been awarded in competitions including the First Prize for the New Velodrome in Medellín, and he was finalist to the 2014 Iakov Chernikhov Prize. His work has led to the production of several publications and exhibitions including the installation Cinecittá Occupata for the 2014 Venice Biennale by invitation of the general curator Rem Koolhaas, and is part of the permanent collection of the Pompidou Center.

His work unfolds through diverse media and platforms and is continuously informed by different kinds of conversations and collaborations. Together with the After Belonging Agency, he is the Chief Curator of the 2016 Oslo Architecture Triennale (Graham Foundation Award 2015). He previously collaborated in the research project Radical Pedagogies, led by Beatriz Colomina at Princeton SOA, and has co-curated its exhibition at the 2013 Lisbon Architecture Triennale and at the 2014 Venice Biennale, where it was awarded a Special Mention of the jury.

He is a Term Assistant Professor at the Department of Architecture at Barnard+Columbia Colleges, and has previously taught studios and seminars at Columbia GSAPP and PennDesign. He trained at ETSAMadrid and TU Delft, and graduated as a Fulbright Scholar from the MArchII program at Harvard GSD. He has been a Fellow at the Spanish Academy in Rome, and is completing a PhD in Architecture History at Princeton University.

Jesse McCormick is a designer, researcher, and educator where he is faculty at the Spitzer School of Architecture at the City College of New York. His research has been shown at The Istanbul Design Biennale, The Oslo Architecture Triennale, and Storefront for Art and Architecture among others. As a designer he has built work in the United States and Mexico. He received a Master of Architecture from Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation.

Future Projects is an architecture and interior design firm founded by Julie Tran and Khoi Nguyen that is dedicated to exploring the richness of human experience and creating spaces that are genuinely personal, socially engaging, and finely crafted. Committed to the idea that design can enrich our inner lives and connect us to the outside world in profound ways, Future Projects does not adhere to any particular style but rather our design process is guided by an interest in aesthetic experiences that offer new ways of living, working and connecting with one another.

Other projects from the architect