atlanta floods.

There arises in the centre of the city a great moat. Steep sides cut deep into the fabric. Its flow is quick and unrelenting. To cross without bride or careful navigation would be certain death. Few have tried and fewer have survived. This gash across the city splits it in two. The flow of this great body is more complex than most. Currents flow in both directions and speed is highly variable. Sometimes it becomes an almost stagnant crawl; heat rising lazily in the oppressive summer sun. Other times the pace quickens. Low tides speed up the flow to dangerous speed; the eye can barely track its motion.

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alone in a world of cyberconnectivity.

The noise was deafening. The visuals more than the eye could handle. The space expansive but silent. The density overwhelming. The crowds pushed in from all sides. Communication was primary. But no one spoke. Visuals were everything but no one looked. The lulling trance of the digital screen played seductively across the faces of every patron. This is the 21st century café. The vestiges of social orders playing across everyone’s minds. Refusing to browse the internet in seclusion, they interact with millions with almost perfect anonymity.

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class warfare: the reciprocity of egomania

The second years. A perfectly banal and objective statement, charged and aggravated by class warfare. There exists within the College of Architecture a fundamental disjoint between the second years and the third and fourth years. Perhaps the parametrically driven computational design to the extreme the second years have been learning has given them the scripter’s ego. A notion of superiority and the end all of architecture. Perhaps it is the critical pessimism of fourth years, disillusioned by years of work, downtrodden by the industry, facing a grim reality that makes them fundamentally critical of all things lower class.

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M. Min Ra – The Interview

M. Min Ra, principle of Front Inc (a firm dedicated to facade engineering and consulting), has had the opportunity to work with prominent architecture firms as Office of Metropolitan Architecture [OMA], REX, Herzog and de Meuron, SANAA, and Zaha Hadid Architects, and he shares some insight with dealing with some of the most preeminent architects in the field.

an interview with m. min ra [MR] by kelly darby [KD] and patrick di rito [PDR]

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winter wonder | death proof: a cinematic diptych

As an already avid fan of the films of Quentin Tarantino, I was struck by the absolute simplicity of the linear diptych format of the film Death Proof. Already a diptych of films with Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror, the film is part of a double feature, a historical homage to the film industry.

Tarantino’s only film to have a purely linear format, the film questions the content occupying the diptychal image and presents instead the dualistic dialectic as superseding to the narrative content. Playing off of the genre of exploitation films the spectator is draw into a false sense of repetition; however, the framing of the first constantly haunt the viewer into engaging into the lives of the second half. //

signing_off | patrick di rito

options iii / design studio v

tristan al-haddad

beltline installation / dekalb ave / airline dr

an installation mediating a temporal terminus of a continuous loop. anamporphic projections converge with the voronoi pattern to create a lingering framing of both sky and proximate site.

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the digital protest

When the US decided to try their hand at protesting, having not seen serious political protests arguably since the protest of the Vietnam War they turned towards their northern neighbors for organizational support. The Adbusters Media Foundation is a Canadian based anti-consumerist, pro-environment group, who aligning themselves with the political goals of anti-corporationism of the Occupy Wall Street Protesters. //

flux proposal. [part 3]

As the eve of the flux night approaches the team begins to make prototypes. the animals are restless. //

“rapid passage through varied ambiances” – Guy Debord

To find Mint Gallery is to experience Atlanta. It is not the castle on the hill of the High Museum, a collective effort of Richard Meier and Renzo Piano. A promontory of white steel projecting into the sky. An inviting courtyard without an inviting passage. It removes itself from the street and all that the street represents; a coexistence with the pedestrian, the flâneur of the city. The museum does not recognize their existences. They are foreign ideas to the automotive driven city of Atlanta, but the vestiges of such still permeate the urban fabric. //

chairs as benches. plants as graffiti.

A proposal for “Art on the Atlanta Beltline.” Patrick Di Rito, Ky Le, James Murray, Shota Vashakmadze. //

flux proposal. part 2.

goodbye Roosevelt House.

“Goodbye pain, goodbye extremes, goodbye self-denial, and goodbye Ulay.” Marina Abramovic.

[video] [video2 video3 video4] //

bjarke ingels. big.

As he prepared his lecture, a glimpse of his computer revealed the emblazoned logotype of ‘Yes Is More,’ the mantra from his archi-comic monograph and a silent premonition of the evening’s refrain. He traced the etymology of this phrase through Mies, Venturi, Philip Johnson, and Barack Obama, recognizing them while slyly situating himself in their company. This playful, yet absolute confidence in his work swayed the talk imperceptibly from cynicism to sincerity, leaving the audience to question when, if ever, the shift had occurred.

flux proposal

a proposal for flux. shota vashakmadze, james murray, patrick di rito. //

cottle khan architects [part 2]

The latest addition and renovation by Cottle and Khan Architects for the residence of Mary Fisher and Steve McLaughlin. [part 1]

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