ARCH 502 | Spring 2021
Schenck - Woodman Competition (Honorable Mention)
Collaboration with Yuexin Ma, Monte Reed & Joao de Paula Freitas
“As opposed to the official feast, one might say that carnival celebrated temporary liberation from the prevailing truth and from the established order; it marked the suspension of all hierarchical rank, privileges, norms, and prohibitions. Carnival was the true feast of time, the feast of becoming, change, and renewal. It was hostile to all that was immortalized and completed.”
—Mikhail M. Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World
Commemorating the abolition of slavery of June 19, 1865, Juneteenth has been celebrated in Philadelphia’s Center City since 2016 with a parade of local dance troupes, drumlines and nonprofits marching or riding floats.
Considering the history of structural racism, police brutality, neo-liberal withdrawal of basic public services, Penntrification and relentless criminalization of West Philadelphia’s black community, a carnival float is needed that can infect the public with revolutionary dreams, an architecture of temporary liberation for the Juneteenth celebration in West Philadelphia’s 52nd street corridor.
Outlaw challenges the general architectural practice by deconstructing the oppresive design order and promoting collective and plural design practice.
Designed to perform at the Juneteenth Parade in West Philadelphia, the Outlaw floatsuggests a series of spaces and activities for the youth in the community to experience, play, learn, and communicate in the neighborhood.
