Rebar art and design studio
Encyclopedia
Rebar Art and Design Studio, founded in 2004, is an interdisciplinary studio based in San Francisco, operating at the intersection of art, design and activism. The group’s work encompasses visual and conceptual public art, landscape design, urban intervention, temporary performance installation, digital media and print design. The work examines the fabric of the urban environment by examining hidden assumptions and shared meanings embedded in the everyday experience of the built world. Rebar's projects often intersect with contemporary urban ecology
, new urbanism
, and psychogeography
practices and theory. Principle members of Rebar are Matthew Passmore, John Bela, Blaine Merker, and Teresa Aguilera. Rebar’s work has been exhibited at the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale
, ExperimentaDesign Amsterdam, ISEA 2009 Dublin, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
, the American Institute of Architects
, the Canadian Centre for Architecture
, the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Parsons School of Design, University of California Berkeley, the University of Michigan, the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
was launched November 16, 2005 when Rebar converted a single metered parking space into a temporary public park in the SOMA district of San Francisco. The installation was a response to the fact that at the time 70% of San Francisco’s downtown outdoor space was dedicated to the private vehicle. SOMA was chosen because of its reputation as a city district that was underserved by public open space. Today Park(ing) Day is a global “open source” project, which has been adapted to address a variety of social issues in diverse urban contexts around the world. PARK(ing) Day has expanded to include a broad range of interventions ranging from free health clinics, urban farming and ecology demonstrations, political seminars, art installations, and free bike repair shops. In 2009 more than 700 Park(ing) Day events were organized 140 cities, in 21 countries on 6 continents.
neighborhood of San Francisco in September 2010. The installation at 22nd and Bartlett in San Francisco was part of a Pavement to Parks pilot project supported by the San Francisco Planning Department. A third Walklet, which gained city approval in late October 2010, will extend the existing Columbus Street installation. In September 2010, San Francisco’s vastly expanded the scope of the Pavement to Parks program when it issued a request for proposals for Parklet permits to city businesses and nonprofits.
A Walklet extends the sidewalk surface into the street and creates a more open and walkable pedestrian experience by converting parking spaces into usable public space meant to suit the needs of a neighborhood's social and business community. Each Walklet is composed of many three-foot wide modules, which each serve a single, specific purpose, such as seating area, standing and walking area, or landscaping area. The modules can be mixed and matched with other Walklet modules to create a design combination for each unique site.
, made its debut during PARK(ing) Day 2007, in San Francisco. It is a human-powered open space distribution system designed for movement within the existing auto-centric urban infrastructure. PARK(ing) Day 2007 and the PARKcycle were both supported by a grant from the Black Rock Arts Foundation.
taco could provide information on the Bay Area’s food and wastesheds. Tacoshed catalogued the network of systems, flows and ecologies that contribute to the lifecycle of a taco and the findings were presented at a public event in February 2010. A schematic diagram of the project was also published in Issue 11 of Meatpaper
magazine, released in Spring 2010, and the project garnered mentions on BLDGBLOG
and in Good Magazine
. The progress of the project is communicated via the @tacoshed Twitter account. Maps and graphics were created by Rachael Yu and Annie Aldrich, Teresa Aguilera, and Fletcher Studio.
. The land was part of a failed 1960's residential development called the "Sunshine Valley Ranchettes," now a desolate tract of desert scrubland outside of Deming, New Mexico
. The magazine immediately set upon the land a complex, non-traditional development scheme. The land was dubbed Cabinetlandia and divided into manageable sectors- Readerlandia, Editorlandia, Nepotismia, and so forth. Magazine-sized parcels were offered to readers for a penny for a 99-year lease. Rebar contacted Cabinet Magazine and organized a collaborative effort to construct the Cabinet National Library, a library which contains all and only back issues of Cabinet magazine. The project is an actual, usable library and it served as Rebar's founding project. The Cabinet National Library is built on the half acre site from a three-drawer file cabinet and includes a card catalog, guest book, guest services, back issues of Cabinet and a snack bar.
requested that the Garden stay in place through Thanksgiving 2008. The garden was part of a broader effort to get San Francisco's citizens to think about urban open space
by transforming ornamental landscapes into productive landscapes. The Civic Center Victory Garden was built in collaboration with the Garden for the Environment’s Victory Garden Program.
in 1989. At the time San Francisco's Central Freeway
was compromised and in the years to come the ramps bordered by Laguna, Oak, Fell, and Octavia Streets were closed, and the lot was locked up. On January 24, 2010, San Francisco opened the site for temporary green space use and it became the Hayes Valley Farm. Rebar was involved in the design of the project concept and fundraising efforts, and later focused on the design and construction of the farm greenhouse, irrigation system, and general infrastructure. While Rebar gradually phased out of having a formal role, they remain project supporters. All produce grown at the farm is donated to local food banks and shelters.
is critical breeding habitat for seven seabird and four marine mammal species. Rebar worked in collaboration with Oikonos Ecosystem Knowledge, a conservation biology and habitat restoration non-profit organization, to restore the degraded habitat for the Rhinoceros Auklet
. The restoration project includes a habitat ridge to protect one-acre of bird habitat from seals and sea lions, which would otherwise trample Auklet nests and island vegetation, and to provide human-made ceramic modules for bird nesting.
, where it was open for both impromptu and scheduled performances. The bandshell was dismantled on September 14, 2007 and moved to Treasure Island for winter storage. The Bandshell was stored at San Francisco's Fort Mason
campus, where it was available for public performances through the spring of 2010. The Panhandle Bandshell was built by Rebar in collaboration with The Finch Mob, CMG Landscape Architecture.
art gallery in San Francisco. The exhibition focused on ideas of migration, transition, improvisation and community. The performance was a temporary canning operation that harvested, processed and canned the gallery itself. Rebar systematically mapped and cored sections of the gallery wall and, utilizing the latest in industrial assembly-line technology, canned the cores in metal cans on-site during the opening and closing night events. Cans were then labeled and sold to support Southern Exposure and Rebar. EnCanment worked with the historical context of the gallery, which occupies a former industrial site that once housed the American Can Company
. The earliest incarnation of Southern Exposure was the “American Can Collective.”
Urban ecology
Urban ecology is a subfield of ecology which deals with the interaction between organisms in an urban or urbanized community, and their interaction with that community. Urban ecologists study the trees, rivers, wildlife and open spaces found in cities to understand the extent of those resources and...
, new urbanism
New urbanism
New Urbanism is an urban design movement, which promotes walkable neighborhoods that contain a range of housing and job types. It arose in the United States in the early 1980s, and has gradually continued to reform many aspects of real estate development, urban planning, and municipal land-use...
, and psychogeography
Psychogeography
Psychogeography was defined in 1955 by Guy Debord as "the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals." Another definition is "a whole toy box full of playful, inventive strategies for...
practices and theory. Principle members of Rebar are Matthew Passmore, John Bela, Blaine Merker, and Teresa Aguilera. Rebar’s work has been exhibited at the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale
Venice Biennale of architecture
Mostra di Architettura di Venezia, the Architecture section of the Venice Biennale, was established in 1980, although architecture had been a part of the art biennale since 1968....
, ExperimentaDesign Amsterdam, ISEA 2009 Dublin, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is a multi-disiplinary contemporary arts center in San Francisco, California, United States. Located in Yerba Buena Gardens, YBCA features visual art, performance, and film/video that celebrates local, national, and international artists and the Bay Area's diverse...
, the American Institute of Architects
American Institute of Architects
The American Institute of Architects is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to support the architecture profession and improve its public image...
, the Canadian Centre for Architecture
Canadian Centre for Architecture
The Canadian Centre for Architecture is a museum of architecture and research centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Phyllis Lambert is the Founding Director and Chair of the Board of Trustees, and Mirko Zardini is the Director and Chief Curator....
, the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Parsons School of Design, University of California Berkeley, the University of Michigan, the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Park(ing) Day
Park(ing) DayCar-free movement
The car-free movement is a broad, informal, emergent network of individuals and organizations including social activists, urban planners and others brought together by a shared belief that cars are too dominant in most modern cities...
was launched November 16, 2005 when Rebar converted a single metered parking space into a temporary public park in the SOMA district of San Francisco. The installation was a response to the fact that at the time 70% of San Francisco’s downtown outdoor space was dedicated to the private vehicle. SOMA was chosen because of its reputation as a city district that was underserved by public open space. Today Park(ing) Day is a global “open source” project, which has been adapted to address a variety of social issues in diverse urban contexts around the world. PARK(ing) Day has expanded to include a broad range of interventions ranging from free health clinics, urban farming and ecology demonstrations, political seminars, art installations, and free bike repair shops. In 2009 more than 700 Park(ing) Day events were organized 140 cities, in 21 countries on 6 continents.
Walklet
In May, 2010 Rebar designed and installed its first Walklet, located at 22nd Street and Bartlett in the Mission District of San Francisco. A second walklet was installed and in front of Café Greco along Columbus Avenue in the North BeachNorth Beach
North Beach may refer to a number of places in the world:United States*North Beach, San Francisco*North Beach, Florida, a census-designated place in Indian River County*North Beach, Miami Beach, the northern section of the city of Miami Beach, Florida...
neighborhood of San Francisco in September 2010. The installation at 22nd and Bartlett in San Francisco was part of a Pavement to Parks pilot project supported by the San Francisco Planning Department. A third Walklet, which gained city approval in late October 2010, will extend the existing Columbus Street installation. In September 2010, San Francisco’s vastly expanded the scope of the Pavement to Parks program when it issued a request for proposals for Parklet permits to city businesses and nonprofits.
A Walklet extends the sidewalk surface into the street and creates a more open and walkable pedestrian experience by converting parking spaces into usable public space meant to suit the needs of a neighborhood's social and business community. Each Walklet is composed of many three-foot wide modules, which each serve a single, specific purpose, such as seating area, standing and walking area, or landscaping area. The modules can be mixed and matched with other Walklet modules to create a design combination for each unique site.
Showplace Triangle
Rebar also designed the Showplace Triangle park, located at 8th Street between 16th and Irwin Streets in the Potrero Hill district of San Francisco. It was San Francisco's second Pavement to Parks project, following the Castro Commons park. Rebar’s design for the park used dumpsters for planters and old surplus granite countertops for bench seating. In February 2010 data collected by the Great Streets Project showed a 29 percent increase in pedestrians walking through the plaza, a 40 percent increase in the number of survey respondents who had a positive perception of the neighborhood, and a 61 percent increase among people who considered Showplace Triangle a good place to stop, relax and socialize. The number of users who felt a sense of community character in the area rose 39 percent.PARKcycle
The PARKcycle, built in collaboration with the kinetic sculptor Reuben MargolinReuben Heyday Margolin
Reuben Heyday Margolin is an American-born artist and sculptor known for his mechanically-driven kinetic sculptures of wave-forms. Some of the sculptures are hand-cranked and small scale, while others are large, installed in large high-ceiling spaces, suspended from the ceiling...
, made its debut during PARK(ing) Day 2007, in San Francisco. It is a human-powered open space distribution system designed for movement within the existing auto-centric urban infrastructure. PARK(ing) Day 2007 and the PARKcycle were both supported by a grant from the Black Rock Arts Foundation.
Tacoshed
The Tacoshed project was collaboration between David Fletcher and Rebar, with the students of the Brave New Ecologies Course taught in the Fall of 2009 as part of URBANlab, an innovative curriculum component of The California College of the Arts Architecture Program. The project was meant to give insight to how a familiar food like the food truckFood truck
A food truck, mobile kitchen, mobile canteen, or catering truck is a mobile venue that sells food. Some, including ice cream trucks, sell mostly frozen or prepackaged food; others are more like restaurants-on-wheels...
taco could provide information on the Bay Area’s food and wastesheds. Tacoshed catalogued the network of systems, flows and ecologies that contribute to the lifecycle of a taco and the findings were presented at a public event in February 2010. A schematic diagram of the project was also published in Issue 11 of Meatpaper
Meatpaper
Meatpaper is an American magazine devoted to meat. The publication covers the ethics, aesthetics, and cultural significance of meat, and is more akin to an art journal than a usual food and drink magazine.-History:...
magazine, released in Spring 2010, and the project garnered mentions on BLDGBLOG
BLDGBLOG
BLDGBLOG is an architecture blog authored by futurist Geoff Manaugh, former senior editor at Dwell magazine and a contributing editor at Wired UK. It is acclaimed by The Wall Street Journal , The Atlantic and The Architectural Review....
and in Good Magazine
GOOD Magazine
Good is a media platform that promotes, connects, and reports on the individuals, businesses, and non-profits "moving the world forward." Good produces a , a quarterly magazine, and online video content covering a variety of topics, including the environment, education, urban planning, design,...
. The progress of the project is communicated via the @tacoshed Twitter account. Maps and graphics were created by Rachael Yu and Annie Aldrich, Teresa Aguilera, and Fletcher Studio.
Cabinet National Library
For its Spring 2003 issue on "Property," Cabinet Magazine, a non-profit Arts and Culture quarterly, purchased a 1/2 acre of land for $300 on eBayEBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
. The land was part of a failed 1960's residential development called the "Sunshine Valley Ranchettes," now a desolate tract of desert scrubland outside of Deming, New Mexico
Deming, New Mexico
Deming is a city in Luna County, New Mexico, United States, located 60 miles west of Las Cruces. The population was 14,116 at the 2000 census. Deming is the county seat and principal town of Luna County.-History:...
. The magazine immediately set upon the land a complex, non-traditional development scheme. The land was dubbed Cabinetlandia and divided into manageable sectors- Readerlandia, Editorlandia, Nepotismia, and so forth. Magazine-sized parcels were offered to readers for a penny for a 99-year lease. Rebar contacted Cabinet Magazine and organized a collaborative effort to construct the Cabinet National Library, a library which contains all and only back issues of Cabinet magazine. The project is an actual, usable library and it served as Rebar's founding project. The Cabinet National Library is built on the half acre site from a three-drawer file cabinet and includes a card catalog, guest book, guest services, back issues of Cabinet and a snack bar.
Bushwaffle
Bushwaffle are personal devices designed to give individuals the freedom to create their own personalized urban forms in public spaces. They are inflatable, star-shaped, and can be used individually or be connected to create complex forms.Civic Center Victory Garden
Rebar participated in the design and construction of the San Francisco Civic Center Victory Garden with John Bela serving as Victory Gardens Program Manager. The garden was located in San Francisco’s Civic Center, an area that contains many of the city’s largest government and cultural institutions, and near the Tenderloin, a neighborhood with significant poverty, homelessness, and crime. The Victory Garden was installed from July 1, 2008 to Thanksgiving 2008. On July 12, over 250 volunteers transplanted thousands of seedlings into donated soil. The garden represented a social and political experiment and within weeks the garden was producing approximately 100 lbs of fresh organic produce a week, all of which was donated to the San Francisco Food Bank, and distributed to meals programs throughout the City. Originally slated to be removed on September 21, Mayor Gavin NewsomGavin Newsom
Gavin Christopher Newsom is an American politician who is the 49th and current Lieutenant Governor of California. Previously, he was the 42nd Mayor of San Francisco, and was elected in 2003 to succeed Willie Brown, becoming San Francisco's youngest mayor in 100 years. Newsom was re-elected in 2007...
requested that the Garden stay in place through Thanksgiving 2008. The garden was part of a broader effort to get San Francisco's citizens to think about urban open space
Urban open space
In land use planning, urban open space is open space areas for “parks”, “green spaces”, and other open areas. The landscape of urban open spaces can range from playing fields to highly maintained environments to relatively natural landscapes. They are commonly open to public access, however, urban...
by transforming ornamental landscapes into productive landscapes. The Civic Center Victory Garden was built in collaboration with the Garden for the Environment’s Victory Garden Program.
Hayes Valley Farm
In 2010 Rebar joined the Hayes Valley Farm as a founding partner and design advisor. The farm was conceived as a way to activate an empty lot of about 2 acres left over from the Loma Prieta earthquakeLoma Prieta earthquake
The Loma Prieta earthquake, also known as the Quake of '89 and the World Series Earthquake, was a major earthquake that struck the San Francisco Bay Area of California on October 17, 1989, at 5:04 p.m. local time...
in 1989. At the time San Francisco's Central Freeway
Central Freeway
The Central Freeway is a roughly one-mile elevated freeway in San Francisco, California, United States, connecting the Bayshore/James Lick Freeway with the Hayes Valley neighborhood. Most of the freeway is part of US 101, which exits at Mission Street on the way to the Golden Gate Bridge...
was compromised and in the years to come the ramps bordered by Laguna, Oak, Fell, and Octavia Streets were closed, and the lot was locked up. On January 24, 2010, San Francisco opened the site for temporary green space use and it became the Hayes Valley Farm. Rebar was involved in the design of the project concept and fundraising efforts, and later focused on the design and construction of the farm greenhouse, irrigation system, and general infrastructure. While Rebar gradually phased out of having a formal role, they remain project supporters. All produce grown at the farm is donated to local food banks and shelters.
Año Nuevo Island Restoration
Año Nuevo IslandAño Nuevo Island
Año Nuevo Island is a small island off Año Nuevo Point on the coast of Northern California, between San Francisco and Santa Cruz. It is an important breeding site for Northern Elephant Seals and the endangered Steller's Sea Lion, as well as several species of seabirds, including Rhinoceros...
is critical breeding habitat for seven seabird and four marine mammal species. Rebar worked in collaboration with Oikonos Ecosystem Knowledge, a conservation biology and habitat restoration non-profit organization, to restore the degraded habitat for the Rhinoceros Auklet
Rhinoceros Auklet
The Rhinoceros Auklet is a seabird and a close relative of the puffins. It is the only living species of the genus Cerorhinca. Given its close relationship with the puffins, the common name Rhinoceros Puffin has been proposed for the species.It ranges widely across the North Pacific, feeding on...
. The restoration project includes a habitat ridge to protect one-acre of bird habitat from seals and sea lions, which would otherwise trample Auklet nests and island vegetation, and to provide human-made ceramic modules for bird nesting.
Panhandle Bandshell
The Panhandle Bandshell is a full-scale performance stage constructed almost entirely out of reclaimed and repurposed materials, including 65 automobile hoods, hundreds of computer circuit boards, 3,000 plastic water bottles, French doors, reclaimed wood, and recycled structural steel. It is a fully modular structure, which can be dismantled, moved and re-assembled anywhere. From June 23 to September 3, 2007, it was installed in San Francisco's Panhandle ParkPanhandle (San Francisco)
The Panhandle is a park in San Francisco, California that forms a panhandle with Golden Gate Park. It is long and narrow, being three-quarters of a mile long and one block wide. Fell Street borders it to the north, Oak Street to the south, and Baker Street to the east. The Haight-Ashbury District...
, where it was open for both impromptu and scheduled performances. The bandshell was dismantled on September 14, 2007 and moved to Treasure Island for winter storage. The Bandshell was stored at San Francisco's Fort Mason
Fort Mason
Fort Mason, once known as San Francisco Port of Embarkation, US Army, in San Francisco, California, is a former United States Army post located in the northern Marina District, alongside San Francisco Bay. Fort Mason served as an Army post for more than 100 years, initially as a coastal defense...
campus, where it was available for public performances through the spring of 2010. The Panhandle Bandshell was built by Rebar in collaboration with The Finch Mob, CMG Landscape Architecture.
COMMONspace
COMMONspace was a project to map, explore and evaluate San Francisco's privately-owned public open spaces. As part of San Francisco's efforts to provide more downtown public space, the city partnered with private developers to create a number of privately-owned public spaces. Rebar examined how public the spaces were: whether they were under surveillance, difficult to find, had a private appearance, or were inaccessible. Rebar also partnered with Snap Out Of It to conduct a series of events and paraformances in these spaces. After the initial project, the SF Urban Planning and Research Association (SPUR) released a report on San Francisco's "POPOS."EnCanment
EnCanment was a performance installation included in the "Between the Walls" exhibition at the Southern ExposureSouthern Exposure (art space)
-About:Southern Exposure is a not-for-profit arts organization and alternative art space founded in 1974 in the Mission District of San Francisco, California....
art gallery in San Francisco. The exhibition focused on ideas of migration, transition, improvisation and community. The performance was a temporary canning operation that harvested, processed and canned the gallery itself. Rebar systematically mapped and cored sections of the gallery wall and, utilizing the latest in industrial assembly-line technology, canned the cores in metal cans on-site during the opening and closing night events. Cans were then labeled and sold to support Southern Exposure and Rebar. EnCanment worked with the historical context of the gallery, which occupies a former industrial site that once housed the American Can Company
American Can Company
The American Can Company was a manufacturer of tin cans. It was a member of the Tin Can Trust, that controlled a "large percentage of business in the United States in tin cans, containers, and packages of tin." It was formerly a member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average from 1959–1991, though...
. The earliest incarnation of Southern Exposure was the “American Can Collective.”