Project: Field Location: Arts Quad, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA Client: AAP, Escuela de Arquitectura, Cornell University Architects: Mauricio Pezo, Sofia von Ellrichshausen, Yehre Suh Collaborators: Sae-Jun Ahn, Laura Amaya, Jesica Bello, John Best, Irina Chernyakova, Constanza Cortes, Karen Drummund, Monica Alexandra Freundt, Thea von Geldern, Lisa Hollywood, Amanda Lee Huang, Soyoung Jung, Kyle Keene, Jina Kim, Viola Diane Kosseda, Weonyoung Joy Lee, Chris Leonberg, Timothy Liddell, Jacqueline Liu, Hana Ovcina, Mia Ovcina, Mansi Ajit Pandey, Anna Pelavin, Hilary Pinnington, Mitchell W. Pride, Lorena Quintana, Ashley Reed, Samuel J. Reilly, Landon Gary Robinson, Hira Sabuhi, Johann Schweig, Courtney Song, Jerome Soustra, Rachel Tan, Margarita Urquiza, Mauricio Vieto, Zhiqiang Wang, Christopher Werner, Sonny Meng Qi Xu, Soo Jung Yoo, Milena Zindovic Photography: Karen Brummund, Mauricio Pezo, Irina Chernyakova, Jesica Bello Project year: 2009 Construction Year: 2009 Surface: 30.000 m2 Budget: 3000 USD
This installation establishes an optical exercise extended into a landscape format. Field is a continuous and homogenous installation of 2800 red sacks filled with straw (21” wide x 32” high) that covered the entire Arts Quad of the Cornell University Campus, in Ithaca (NY). The sacks were distributed in a 10 feet by 10 feet regular grid that followed the natural slope of the ground surface.
Color dots arranged in a regular formation examine the formal properties of the agricultural fields in reference to the past history of the site. The project establishes a translation of the geometrical geography that is necessary for productive agricultural labors and, at the same time, it depicts the overlap between that original field morphology with a sort of physical impossibility of making an idealized, Cartesian and abstract pattern. Ultimately, this exercise reclaims the centrality of the Arts Quad’s openness with an inclusive and non-hierarchical spatial structure.
