How did participation or selec-tion benefit you? (personally or as a firm)

The exhibition gave us a forum to frame our past work in a new way. We did not look at this as an opportunity to just show our work but to present it in a unified way that would transform it into a living mission statement, an allegorical charter for usefulness. We did not take anything away from the selec-tion directly other than faith in ourselves for being able to complete the work and the excitement at breathing new representational life and potential into old projects.

What are the lasting affects (sic) of Emerging Voices? (Potential or actual)

We have continued to work with the format that we developed for the exhibition, the framing and transubstantiation of our past projects into an allegorical realm through which two gentlemen roam and present commentary and insight into the limitations of architecture and the empowerment of the individual in a world constructed by the few. Emerging Voices gave us the forum, we provided ourselves with the prompt and the inspiration. On top of that, it was not very effective or influential in shaping the standing of our careers.

How do you feel YAF (+ Emerging Voices) contributes to the celebration of interns and newly registered architects?

I think it is very positive that it gives them a voice. I feel like the program could be more integrated or recognized by the AIA who seemed to have more important things to do, although I felt that the ‘exhibition’ they ‘organized’ to coincide with the Emerging Voices show last spring was an embarassment.

What are some of the challenges you’ve faced already in your young career?

We have faced the facts that our work is not superficially palatable. We do not seek to align with contemporary style or the nouveau suburbanite interest in shopping and capitalisme, we struggle to inspire individuals to do work for themselves, to create, to erase their reliance on a top-down system of production and taste. In a sense, our challenge, and our inner struggle, is that we seek to counter the very profession we use as our vehicle.

What are your thoughts on the built environment in Atlanta? How do you see it changing into the future?

I am pleased with continued development inside the perimeter. In theory it counters sprawl and creates density. However the manifestation of newly built “lofts” and enormous big box shopping lots are anathema to those goals and point to the inherent problem with Atlanta, that its fabric has been destroyed and that its new population has been raised in the suburbs and seeks to recreate this environment, albeit in a grittier packaging, inside the perimeter. It is a sham.

Describe the moment you decided to enter Emerging Voices and why.

We felt as though we had a very different voice to offer, we didnt feel as though we needed to present architecture as buildings and plans, but as stories, and lived-in scenarios, the way most people regard the built world.

Describe some positive experiences that you remember from the exhibition of your work.

The exhibition was a great treat. We worked 12 hours a day for 6 days installing the work and had been working a vast amount on preparing artifacts. We treated the exhibition as a project in itself, it was not just throwing the old images into a flash presentation on a projector, it was couching that old work in a new way that could communicate far more than the projects could on their own. We ate soy nuts, listened to Scott Walker, watched people come and go with their stock marketing boards, and explored the marquis complex, became friends with Laura Moody and Greg Walker, and pushed ourselves to say something in a way that we knew only we could. We were extremely proud of the outcome and hold it as a major accomplishment for ourselves. It would be wonderful if the rest of the exhibition had been invested with as much time and thought as we saw fit to put forward.

What advice would you share with the 2006 winners?

Take this exhibition as an opportunity to revisit your work critically. There is no shame in investigating your past work and determining how it should shape your future and your relationship with your partners.

What would you say to encourage those who may enter in future years… in 2007?

Take risks.

How has your practice evolved or grown since the year you entered
Emerging Voices (not directly based on participation)?

We have continued to work on a publication version of our exhibition that presents the fictional narrative along with the artifacts in the format of a picaresque post-dated historical novel. We have also been selec-ted to exhibit our work at the Center for Architecture in NYC as part of the Emerging New York Architects program for our work on an Arts Center at the southern tip of Roosevelt Island.

What did you learn from the process?

We learned to be proud of speaking in our own voice, to take liberties with the boundaries of architectural practice, and that we love to work our asses off.

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funny, i was just crying at saul’s feet, ‘if we don’t get that grant, i fucking give up!’

tags: news, marquis, publications, hacks

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The first book, ‘marquis’, of the work.group epic _ex_nihilo_ has been closed. For those who were unable or unwilling to attend the show at the Museum of Design Atlanta in person, the work.group has put together a virtual romp where the text and vignettes follow the same temporal order as the work in the the MODA installation.

The virtual show may be found at:
sisyphean.com/projekts/marquis/install

In addition, the work.group has compiled and made public a series of
digital images of the installation process, the work in situ, and the
fête d’ouverture.

These images may be found at:
sisyphean.com/galleries

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• i am not enthused about the display of the map; maybe it could have gone into a frame or had more map ‘on the wall’ (paint/labels)
• the publius frames could have been larger!
• the legends seem prominent; maybe they don’t need corners?
• that ‘mville secedes’ headline is a great opening’ you can peep it from any where in the espace, and it sets off the idea of a fictional realm well.
• those handwritten notes in mville look dumb; ‘i’ should have used the ocr versions.
• i forgot the handwritten p3 journal!
• could have put ‘wrk.grp on the wall, above arlingtonton, large enough to be peeped from the hall/msme space
• added ‘picaresque parable’ or whatever somehere in large type
• added years.
• should not have included the white truck pic; it is lame
• jt’s mom wants us to change our name so jt will get out there? would she tell mick jagger that ‘rolling stones’ isn’t cutting it for him?

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cold lounging in p’tree centre mall, peeping ron through the wolf glass, and listening to slack jawed yokels ask for directions to dq. tight work hath been cook’d this week + past months, b’hoy; you should be proud.

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-amsterdam houston

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sean michael finn taunts us with: got a break in the weather and a salad at go veggie today. attached are the
shots i got.

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