From a press release (All photos copyright Anice Hoachlander courtesy Studio 27 Architecture):

Be Civilized – Be Urban
Installation and Exhibit at Filter Coffeehouse, Washington DC, through September 2013
Architect: Studio Twenty Seven Architecture
Design Team: John Burke, Jon Grinham, Todd Ray, Sophia Zelov
Location: Filter Coffeehouse, 1916 I Street, NW, Washington DC.

Taking Dr. Spiro Kostof’s dictum “To be civilized is to be urban” as inspiration, Studio Twenty Seven Architecture has launched the first in a series of installations and exhibits with which it hopes to challenge urban norms and encourage non-standard thinking and discourse on our city and beyond. Be Civilized – Be Urban is on display at Filter Coffeehouse at 1916 I Street, NW through the end of September, 2013.

This installation focuses on Studio Twenty Seven’s research concerning Washington DC’s most urbanistically fraught administrative quadrant, Southwest.  A neighborhood in its own right, Southwest is markedly different from the rest of Washington DC, a difference that can be attributed almost completely to the rise of the District’s commuter culture.

Southwest is bound by federal and civic infrastructure and the Eisenhower era highways that were built to provide easy access to the core for the 20^th Century’s newly suburbanized workers. Isolated in this way, the quadrant was further marked by one of the nation’s most concerted federal efforts at urban renewal. National policies that encouraged suburbanization also spurred urban divestment, and the built result of this cycle, along with decades of attempted remediation, are writ large in Southwest.

Be Civilized – Be Urban explores the consequences of deurbanization as manifest in Washington generally, and Southwest specifically. It shows how these consequences are still felt today, and speculates on future strategies to rethink the urban territory. Material from the exhibit is further developed in Studio Twenty Seven’s newly released book, Southwest Washington DC: (A)mending L’Enfant’s Plan, and an excerpt from the book was recently published on Atlantic Cities.com.

Be Civilized – Be Urban is dominated by a three-dimensional dataset hung in the center of the space.  This floating cloud shows the geographic effect of the District’s daily population surge, relative to its resident population. Despite a steady increase in population in the new millennium, in 2013 Washington DC is still at the top of the list of large American cities with dramatic swings between daytime and resident populations.

Graphic’s explaining the change over time of Southwest’s street grid – the site of the only wholesale departure from Washington’s famous L’Enfant Plan – its greenspace, brownfields, and housing typologies, are displayed along with speculative prototypes and schema. Challenging the viewer to question the District’s predisposition to historicism and ossification, Studio Twenty Seven created a ceramic tea set, the components of which are modeled on housing typologies old, new, and speculative.

Of major American centers of politics, finance, and culture, Washington DC continues to lag behind in the latter. Recent cultural setbacks include the censorship of David Wojnarowicz at the National Portrait Gallery, the Corcoran School of Art’s proposed decampment for the suburbs, and the Smithsonian’s defunding of the Hirshorn Bubble. It is Studio Twenty Seven’s hope that by encouraging art, architecture and urban discourse in small, local actions, we can subvert the larger trends that compromise the District’s voice in contemporary culture.

I thought Atlas Recycled was awesome.

Check out Plastic Storm Sculpture after the jump.

Thanks to a reader for sending a Notice of Zoning for New Art Gallery/Studio in the former Lady Lisa’s Beauty Salon at 1527 9th St, NW.

1527 9th Zoning Notice (PDF)

Whenever I ask friends about the Hopscotch Bridge connecting North Capitol to H Street I get love it or hate it answers. I fall under the love it category. What do you guys think – love it or hate it?

It is award winning:

It’s been a while since I passed this bizarre sidewalk sculpture. Also from Riggs Place.

Back in Dec. we learned that Black Whiskey would be opening in former Mar de Plata space in Logan Circle. At that time they hoped to open around the April. Looks like they still have some more buildout to do but according to the liquor license application, the space will be pretty large:

“New Full Service Restaurant serving American cuisine with occasional DJ and Dancing. Number of inside seats is 140. Total occupancy load is 275. Summer Garden, number of seats is 20.“

About a month ago we learned Pleasant Plains Workshop would be expanding into the former Soul Vegetarian space at 2606 Georgia Avenue, NW. They’re about half way towards their goal of raising $10,000:

Pleasant Plains Workshop is a shared studio space, classroom, gallery and retail outlet for local artists in Washington, DC. It was founded in 2010 by DC-based artist, Kristina Bilonick. In January of 2013, the Workshop took on the building adjacent to its existing location. Over the next few months, they will be building a state-of-the art screen printing studio so that they can provide space for more artists to work, and present more exhibitions and classes to the community. The workshop’s current location will become solely the retail and gallery component offering goods created by resident artists and other local artists and artisans.

Since its opening, the space has quickly become a hub of the neighborhood- offering 6 art exhibitions a year, a variety of programs and classes, and wide variety of handmade items by dc artists and artisans. Almost everyone who visits the space goes on to become a regular at PPW gatherings and events.

With the funds raised on this platform, we will be able to take our Workshop to the next level, offering more opportnities for local artists, and more exhibitions and programs that our community can come by and enjoy!

You can donate here.

We’ve seen DC Flag gates and transoms before but this is the first window bars I’ve seen. I dig it.

I was gonna ask about sequestration this week but to be honest I’m just sick of sequestration. Yesterday I posted one of my favorite lion sculptures and others voted for their favorites. So to get as far away from sequestration as possible – I wanna talk outdoor art today. It can be either from a private residence or from a museum or government owned. For non private, I love the Kahlil Gibran memorial garden sculptures and poems. From a private home I love this origami crane from Dupont. What’s your favorite piece of outdoor art?

No matter how many times I pass this one, I always stop to admire it. From 13th Street in Columbia Heights.