EXTENU ATING CIRCUM STANCES:SALVAG EDLANDSC APE

Catie Newell

Catie Newell/*Alibi Studio, Salvaged Landscape, Detroit, Michigan, 2010Suspended inward as deep cantilevers, the charred wood creates a jarring occupation and a dramatic introduction of darkness to the house.

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There were no construction drawings. A permit was never pulled. The conventional criteria were passed over. The safety harnesses never arrived. There was no power on site. The demolition was never completed. Work commenced before the design was understood. Money was never exchanged. Damaged material was used. Old nails remained exposed. Occupancy limits were broken. Minimal dimensions were stretched. Visibility was low. The sublime darkness was intentional. And most unique in this list of fabrication transgressions: a simple wilful act of arson, infl icted by a stranger.

The fi re left a form recognisable as a house, beautiful as a texture, and emotionally wrenching in the loss of a domestic and

Built outside legislative guidelines and established construction procedures in the derelict and feral environment of Detroit, Salvaged Landscapes is a true product of transgression. As Catie Newell, founding principal of *Alibi Studio, explains, its making and unmaking was as dependent on the intentions of the designers as the local propensity for arson.

top: Intentionally brought to a moment of stability on Devil’s Night, which is notorious in Detroit for arson, Salvaged Landscape created a new room in the life of the house that implicates the visceral weight of arson throughout the city.

bottom: As the house was torn down by hand, the heavily charred wood was collected and sorted in preparation for its reconfi guration back into the remaining volumes. All of the material of Salvaged Landscape is native to the house.

historical space. The intent was never for lasting occupation or full reconstruction. Instead, Salvaged Landscape relied heavily on the charred remains as a palette and formwork for transmutation. The crime covered the majority of the structure with a beautiful dark shiny black depth, light and fragile, with bulbous and impure geometries. With the visceral impact of the situation counter to these fortuitous material transformations, the circumstances of the house necessitated a physical alteration. Thus, the task became an effort of ‘curating the demolition’.

Simultaneously making and unmaking, the initial work was invested in tearing down the house by hand, salvaging the scarred material, and the attentive alteration to each

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Simultaneously making and unmaking, the initial work was invested in tearing down the house by hand, salvaging the scarred material, and the attentive alteration to each volume once carefully articulated within the house.

Appropriately, the completion and opening of the work fell on Devil’s Night, which is notorious in Detroit for mischievous and self-serving arson. Salvaged Landscape was only possible because of the current situation in the city of Detroit: a setting of limited civic infrastructure, regular arson, a strained fi re department and faded red tape. These realities are foreign to other settings, or at least less extreme. It is likely that in any other city there would have been urgency to move forward. The evidence of the fi re would have been cleared away immediately, the historical commission would not have been so absent, the squatters that lived in the house would not have returned to protect the project, and any such occupations would not have been permitted. The demolition

below: The site and material palette of Salvaged Landscape are the remnants of a historical house in Detroit that was a target of arson. The work was constructed within the process of the demolition.

right: Cut on end to expose the sectional variation between charred and raw portions of the wooden members, the exterior face of Salvaged Landscape exposes the damage reliant on fl ame to exist while creating a deep and occupiable wall thickness.

volume once carefully articulated within the house. Reminiscent of a clean section cut, the house was stabilised as formwork. The collected and sorted wood was sliced on one end to expose the raw conditions among the depth of the char. With this cut exposed to the exterior, the remaining char of the wood was suspended inward, providing a peculiar confi guration to the space and amassing a consuming intricacy of texture that was violent yet delicate, diffi cult yet breathtaking to occupy. Though each piece was native, the material reconfi guration introduced a new room to the house with an atmosphere that was haunting and swallowed the entire fi rst fl oor. The rest of the house and the site were necessary components of its appearance and existence.

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Permitting movement into the space, Salvaged Landscape constructs a passageway among and through the charred wood that is composed of the reposition of former volumes and materials of the house.

Appropriately, the completion and opening of the work fell on Devil’s Night, which is notorious in Detroit for mischievous and self-serving arson.

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top left: To prompt commentary and refl ection on the current circumstances consuming the ailing and burnt housing stock of Detroit, Salvaged Landscape was put up for sale and marked with a sign that reads ‘House for Sale’.

top right: Framed by the setting and pace of demolition, Salvaged Landscape consumed the room that was at the epicentre of the arson, creating a dense yet occupiable space that was both haunting and beautiful.

bottom: After temporarily moving across the state for an exhibition, Salvaged Landscape returned to Detroit and relocated two plots over from its original address. Aligned with the zoned setbacks, in this position the work contributes to the original residential massing of the street.

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resumed and Salvaged Landscape was hauled away to a neighbouring site in an effort to distribute the massing in an otherwise vanishing cityscape. A second arson to the original house continued and calcifi ed the story. Salvaged Landscape, so greatly determined by the circumstances of its context, was in ways always there, and further, it could be nowhere else.

This kind of work constitutes a form of practice. The work of *Alibi Studio acknowledges that there is no better way to reveal a city than to simply act on it. As cities are strained, once familiar settings become anomalies or strangers to their original intentions. Material conglomerations acquire obscure and unfamiliar attributes, occupations and associations as the

raw material of the city falls in and out of expected defi nitions. This sets the stage for questionable legal, cultural and environmental interpretations. Working in such conditions with the weight of reality, direct material manipulation and the actualities of spatial production collapses architectural interpretation with the city itself. As such, the act of making (be it unmaking, remaking, falsely making, making twice) becomes a means by which to test, reveal, critique and alter the realities of our urban settings. 1

Text © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images © Catie Newell

bottom: After Salvaged Landscape’s relocation a few doors down, the original house was again hit by arson. Salvaged Landscape was untouched.

top: Amidst a purposeful teardown, the project responds to the new textures, spaces and light effects that result from the fi re and demolition. As the demolition continued, Salvaged Landscape was released from its formwork, exposing a dense confi guration constructed of half a house.

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