First Year Studio

Critic Brennan Buck

Fall 2012

 

Location: Science Hill on Yale Campus, New Haven, Connecticut

 

Program: Cafe, interior & exterior seating spaces, & a rotating exhibit to display portions of the vast Peabody Museum collection.  

 

Description: The Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History maintains an enormous archive of specimens & artifacts which act essential as units of data.  The physical presence of these specimens limits their ability to transition into the meta-structure of Big Data & so the curation of specimens to study or display always tell only part of a story.  The paradigm of the limited nature of data based research & representation is shown in the initial study model of the project where wind, temperature, & squirrel movements were observed & measured across the site.  Squirrels were chosen as data-gatherers as they scurried about executing a very basic mental program.  They acted essentially as data drones.  The layering of this information gave a vague notion of the micro conditions on the site (like warmth or the spatial security of a tree) which influence behavior.  The cafe similarly conveys the paradigm of data points in traditional & non-traditional displays.  Each of the pixel like squares houses one of Peabody’s specimens.  They are arranged to create a unique exterior garden of data which conveys the partial stories of the data curation.  Across the site, the pixels transition to hold living specimens of plants & animals, juxtaposing the ongoing natural systems with the study of its objectified remnants.  The interior of the cafe is a long rectangular room that completes the formal courtyard of the Yale Science Hill Building Complex.  This cafe straddles the gap between the formal courtyard & the informal hill-park as a moment between active nature & active study.