ART POMP

"ART POMP"

Work by Sofia Chang, Gina Min, and Ayush Varadhan (all BA '23)

Completed for Claus Benjamin Freyinger's Spring 2023 Undergraduate Studio III (123): "Off-Campus Living." This studio focused on the adaptive re-use of commercial buildings for newly designed co-living arrangements. It was organized around a problem: how to fit new arrangements of people into old buildings?

ART POMP is a short-term artist residency. Artists can return here from their permanent abodes, and lodge at as need arises. We are equipped with spaces for both the visual and performing arts, with state-of-the-art equipment and basketball court.

ART POMP draws from SESC Pompeia, an adaptive reuse cultural center that inhabits a previous factory site. A feature of SESC Pompeia that drew our attention is its connection of towers through aerial bridges. Overlaying the towers’ floor plans upon the given site, we began articulating an organization in which three towers become interconnected through aerial bridges and a uniting boardwalk. This creates a gradient from front to back where the public is slowed along a tripartite event organization into the private.

Let us tell you the story of a particular resident at ART POMP. Sogiyush is a college dropout who has wandered the world for years. They are an artist passionate about interactive sculpture. They find meaning in welding, and are seeking a community of artists to live with and be inspired by. Sogiyush enjoys ART POMP by making use of the welding space, dance studio, and study forest. They visit from Tuesdays to Thursdays, during which they dorm overnight.