- Welcome everyone.
And thank you for attending tonight's event.
My name is Philip Ashby.
I'm with PBS Wisconsin,
and I'll be your host and moderator this evening.
Tonight's event will include a 45-minute presentation,
a 15-minute Q & A, followed by closing remarks.
If you have any questions or comments
during the presentation,
please share those in the chat at any time.
And as for the questions,
we'll address those during the Q & A portion.
I wanted to express a thank-you to our partners
who helped make this event possible,
the John Michael Kohler Arts Center
and the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design.
One of the reasons PBS Wisconsin is a partner of this event
is due to its dedication to enriching
and connecting with audiences throughout the state,
by television, education, and community engagement
and partners such as this one tonight.
We're excited to be continuing this endeavor
by welcoming you to this evening's presentation.
I'll start with some background on our esteemed guest,
Michael Ford, known as the Hip-Hop Architect.
Michael is a Detroit-born architect,
designer, and educator
whose years of experience of professional practice,
research, and publications and lectures fuses two passions:
hip-hop culture and architecture.
As exhibited in his TEDx talk, "Hip-Hop Architecture:
The Post Occupancy Evaluation of Modernism,"
Michael is dedicated to
stimulating cross-disciplinary discourse
between practitioners and residents
on the impact architecture and urban planning has on culture.
His hip-hop architecture research
has been featured in a variety of media,
including appearances on the Oprah Winfrey Network,
the Today show, the Hulu documentary
titled Designed for All .
As for publications,
his work has been in Rolling Stone magazine,
Fast Company , Dezeen , Vibe magazine,
and Interior Design magazine to name a few.
Michael is known in the architectural community
for his thought leadership and is a highly-regarded speaker
with keynotes at the American Institute of Architects
National Conference on Architecture,
The National Organization of Minority Architects
National Conference,
The Interior Design Show in Toronto,
The South by Southwest in Austin,
and numerous colleges and universities.
In 2016, Michael created The Hip-Hop Architecture Camp,
an international program
positioning hip-hop architecture,
hip-hop culture as a catalyst
to introduce underrepresented youth
to architecture, design, and urban planning.
To date, the program has served over 3,000 participants
while also providing paid internships,
academic scholarships, and international travel
to complete hip-hop humanitarian projects.
Currently, Michael has been working alongside
some of the biggest names in hip-hop
on the development of The Universal Hip-Hop Museum
in the Bronx.
On a personal level, as an architect and designer myself,
I really appreciate Michael's understanding and activism
on the lack of representation in the architectural profession,
but I will also add how that influences
design professions overall.
Without further ado, it is a great joy and pleasure
to introduce Michael Ford.
Michael, it's all yours.
- Phil, thanks for that introduction
and thanks to everyone who made this lecture possible.
And thank you to everybody who took some time out
this evening to join this discussion.
I hope that you enjoy it.
And I am looking forward to answering any questions
that you might ask throughout the presentation.
So feel free to use the chat option
and place your questions there throughout the presentation.
You don't have to wait until the end.
I'm gonna go ahead and share my screen.
All right, here we go.
Phil, we're looking good?
We're seeing the presentation screen?
All right, so thanks again.
My name is Mike Ford.
I'll be talking to you today about hip-hop architecture.
Feel free to continue to connect
outside of this presentation, outside of the chat.
I have my social media and my email here.
So if you wanna connect on Twitter, on Instagram,
and you need to get your followers up,
I'll definitely give you a follow back.
Feel free to shoot me a email
if you are not a social media user.
So before I get into the presentation
about hip-hop architecture, I wanted to give you all
a little bit of background about me.
As Phil said in that intro,
I grew up in the city of Detroit,
but more specifically, in Highland Park.
Highland Park is a city within the city of Detroit,
it's bound by Detroit on all sides.
It is the place where Henry Ford
actually created the Model T and the assembly line.
Detroit steals our thunder.
But it was in the city of Highland Park.
But this is where I grew up.
So above, you know, it's one of those bay windows,
the one on the left-hand side,
it's where my parents lived when I was born.
And it was above an activity center
that ironically was owned by my church.
I'll tell you a little bit more about that in a second.
But what made this apartment special,
it provided my introduction to music.
On Friday nights, there would be parties
down below at the activity center,
and from our apartment was a back stairwell.
And you can walk down those stairs,
sit right next to the DJ booth, and peek out into the stage.
And most of the time,
people wouldn't even know that you were sitting there.
So when there would be parties,
say a wedding reception, anything that was happening,
our spot was the spot to spend the night
for all of our cousins.
People wanted to come here, and we can always get a glimpse
into what's happening down there on the stage.
And then we had our, what we call kiddie disco nights,
where, you know, young kids,
we could come together and listen to music.
And a lot of times, we just emulated what it is that we saw
on the other night.
So that's me in the brown outfit there,
you can see some of the other young folks
from the neighborhood, folks that went to my church.
And you can see at an early age,
I'm trying to break dance down there on the left.
Me and my cousin, we got the center of the circle.
I have no idea if we were break-dancing good or bad,
but we definitely were trying.
But this was my early introduction to music.
So not only did I grow up above a place
that constantly had the music Friday nights, Saturday nights,
eventually I started to play the trumpet.
Elementary school, I got introduced to the trumpet.
My dad and his brother were guitar players.
My dad played lead and his brother played the bass.
And we started a jazz band.
So I started to learn how to read sheet music in school.
But when I'm at home with my dad, my uncle,
and some friends from the neighborhood,
we were learning to play music by ear.
We would listen to songs and, you know,
rewind and we're using a tape player
to rewind it over and over again
and eventually learn the notes, and then go out
and perform in different places.
And this introduction to music was something,
as I got introduced to architecture,
I didn't want to put down.
I was in marching bands.
Again, music was and still is a large part of my life.
And when I got introduced to architecture,
early on I didn't see how I was gonna bring this love of music
into the profession.
And when I was at the University of Detroit,
which is where I received my master's degree in architecture,
eventually, I found a way.
And so after completing undergrad,
I had to start writing, you know, my graduate thesis.
And it started with one statement, a thesis statement.
And I spent the entire summer before grad school
writing this thesis statement,
which was gonna be focused on livable skyscrapers.
And what I mean by that is the idea that eventually
there would be skyscrapers
where people will spend their entire life.
There'll be no need to go out of this building at all.
And that was my first idea
for what I was gonna do during graduate school.
And throughout that summer, I wrote about it constantly.
And I mean, before school even started,
I got bored with the topic.
And what started out as a dare became my new thesis topic.
One of my friends, his name is Eric.
We went to high school together,
also went to the University of Detroit together.
He said, "Why don't you just make it about hip-hop
and architecture?"
Because we would always do our presentations at school.
And well, whenever we did presentations at school,
we would always embed music,
secret messages to each other, lyrics that no one else heard,
but we knew what the emcees were saying.
And he said,
"Why don't you just do a complete thesis about that?"
And the first day of school, I stood up, I said,
"My name is Mike Ford.
"And my thesis topic is 'Cultural Innovation:
Hip-Hop Inspired Architecture and Design.'"
This was to the surprise of my thesis advisor
and the Dean of the School of Architecture at the time.
But luckily, it worked out and I haven't put it down since.
After completing that thesis,
I worked at Hamilton Anderson Associates,
a firm in the city of Detroit ran by Rainy Hamilton,
one of the most prominent architects in the country
who's also, you know, African-American.
While there, I was able to work on
Louis Armstrong Park renovation in New Orleans.
So this was after Hurricane Katrina.
Louis Armstrong Park commemorates
New Orleans natives' contribution to jazz music.
So people like Louis Armstrong, Mahalia Jackson and others.
I was also able to work on the Motown Museum expansion
while at Hamilton Anderson.
So Motown Museum,
this was over 12, 13 years ago,
decided that they wanted to create an expansion.
And Rainy Hamilton was one of the architects
they approached.
Rainy knew my love of music.
And he brought me on to, you know,
to assist them with the concept.
This project is an amazing project
that you all should check out now.
Again, it's 12, 13 years later.
Hamilton Anderson is still working on that project
with a national firm.
It's totally different from what it was
when I was working on it,
but it is an amazing project to see.
Another project that I've been able to work on
that mix Black music and architecture
is The Universal Hip-Hop Museum.
I will show you a little bit of that project today.
That is a project in the Bronx, and in all of these experiences,
which combined Black music and architecture,
I've distilled those experiences down
into a curriculum and launched a program called
The Hip-Hop Architecture Camp,
which I will share with you as well.
The Hip-Hop Architecture Camp was started here
in Madison in 2016.
And I created the camp as a new approach
to not only diversifying the field of architecture,
but empowering those who come into the profession.
Currently, less than 2% of licensed architects
in the United States are African-American.
And there have been decades' worth of programs
and millions of dollars spent on trying
to increase that number.
But somehow, we're still at that dismal number
of less than 2%.
So I said, "Maybe it's time for a new approach."
And that is what The Hip-Hop Architecture Camp is.
To date, The Hip-Hop Architecture Camp
has benefited from a number of great media.
Our young folks have been on the Today show,
they've been featured in Rolling Stone magazine
or TIME magazine for kids, the Oprah Winfrey Network,
and a number of other places
that have featured our young folks
in their approach to architecture.
And one of the approaches that I take with, you know,
media and talking about The Hip-Hop Architecture Camp
is if we only talk about the next generation
or try to find the next generation of architects
by talking to architecture publications only,
we're gonna miss that target audience.
So I try to get in places where parents
or young people themselves will see this discussion
and see The Hip-Hop Architecture Camp
as an opportunity to get introduced
to the field of architecture.
When we talk about hip-hop, hip-hop is a culture
that is made up of five elements.
It's the deejay, the emcee, it's breaking.
Most people think of breaking, what's out there
as b-boy or b-girl, and then graffiti.
Those are the four foundational elements.
And then the fifth element is knowledge.
And more specifically, knowledge of self.
And it is the understanding of all of these elements
and hip-hop culture as a universal culture.
At The Hip-Hop Architecture Camp,
we look at all of the elements of hip-hop,
but we do take a deeper dive into the emcee,
but to give you an example of some of the things
I've done in the past that look at other elements.
This exploration, it's called
The Structural Stability of Breaking.
I had to give it this fancy title,
but basically, it is saying that if we can understand
the physics of breaking,
we can start to create new products
or new design approaches.
If we can understand, you know,
the forces that are exhorted on, you know,
different parts of the body, if we can understand the stances
or the freezes that b-boys and b-girls
have when they are breaking,
can we take these freezes and turn them into new products?
So these are some sketches by an artist,
her name is Florian Nicolle, that explores that idea.
And here are some of the renders of, you know,
break dance furniture.
So can you again, take those freezes
and then start to create products
that are based on breaking?
All right, is the furniture just as flexible
as the breaker, right?
Does it at one point become a chair,
then it becomes a table.
And this was again, an exploration into breaking.
And there've been a number of other similar explorations
into graffiti and deejaying.
But I definitely wanna focus on,
so I wanna work at The Hip-Hop Architecture Camp
and the exploration of the emcee.
So that first day that I said
I was gonna change the title of my graduate thesis,
my thesis advisor said,
"I know absolutely nothing about hip-hop,
"but there is a quote that we can look at
and hopefully go from there."
And this was the quote that she shared with me.
"Music is liquid architecture
and architecture is frozen music."
So I spent all of grad school trying to figure out
how to take architecture and--
Or how to create architecture from music.
How to, how do you freeze music?
What is frozen music?
And if architecture is frozen music,
it must not have frozen hip-hop.
What is it?
A lot of questions that were asked.
I think I finished grad school with more questions
than answers, but you know,
16 years later, I'm continuing those discussions now.
During that time, I made this statement that says,
"Hip-hop reflects the built environment
"and serves as an unsolicited,
"uncensored critique of architecture,
urban design, and planning policies."
And I believe this to be true, not only for hip-hop,
but Black music in general.
If you think about jazz, think about blues.
I mean, it was called the blues, right?
It is a reflection of the environment.
What's going on with the artist who's creating the music.
This eventually led to me doing a TEDx that is called
"Hip-Hop as Post Occupancy Evaluation of Modernism."
Another fancy title, just hoping that the TEDx folks
would respond back to my proposal,
but basically saying that
if you are able to listen to hip-hop,
and again, I say, if you're able to listen,
if you're able to really hear the words that are being said
and not get caught up in the beat,
not the rhythms, the dances, but look at the lyrics.
A lot of songs throughout hip-hop are critiquing
the places and spaces where the artists live.
And hip-hop is approaching its 50th anniversary next year.
So for 50 years,
hip-hop has been critiquing space and place.
And unfortunately, we have spent time dancing
to those stories of despair, instead of saying,
"How do we create environments
that might inspire different lyrics?"
So during The Hip-Hop Architecture Camp,
we have our young people,
instead of listening to music, I wanna print lyrics off.
And I created a process that allows them
to evaluate those lyrics mathematically.
One thing that is very unique about hip-hop culture
and the way that people within hip-hop approach various arts,
is it's much more complex than what meets the eye.
This young lady is going through
and she's counting a number of things that they learned
during The Hip-Hop Architecture Camp.
And they're creating a graph.
We call it a bar graph.
So every line in rap is called a bar.
And our young people create these bar graphs.
Now she's going through
and reconstructing that music using Legos,
where each Lego creates or each Lego represents
a unique structure, rhyme scheme,
or something that's been extracted from that music,
and it's represented in her bar graph.
So she's literally creating frozen music.
How do those bar graphs look over the years?
We have continued to develop this process, but you know,
here's some examples of music where you can see
the extraction of the rhythms, the patterns,
things like double entendres,
the rhyme schemes, et cetera,
that have been extracted and frozen.
Then our young people, most of them,
they've never made a 3D model, but we teach them 3D modeling.
So we partner with organizations like Autodesk
to provide software to our young folks.
They also provide funding to The Hip-Hop Architecture Camp,
and the young people use Autodesk products
to start making 3D models.
So these rhyme schemes that you see,
different colors represent different rhyme patterns,
and each artist has their own density of rhymes.
So when our young people start to make these models,
they can compare a person like Lauryn Hill,
which is represented here in this graphic.
They can compare the city or the massing of a city
of Lauryn Hill to that of Cardi B or Jay-Z
or Lupe Fiasco.
And it's not a sonic experience.
It's all a visual experience.
So we can start talking about things
that are related to planning or architecture,
such as density, but for our young people,
it's not density of structures or buildings.
It's really how compacted or again,
the density of rhymes that this emcee creates.
The different heights or different volumes
are based on the complexity of the emcee's vocabulary.
So if you have a rhyme with multiple syllables,
the emcee are given much more credit,
and the resulting volume is higher.
If the emcee is creating some simple rhymes,
the volumes are lower.
If it's a word but it doesn't rhyme at all,
that remains flat.
And that is our universal way of comparing
one emcee to the next.
Again, our young people,
they start to make these 3D models.
And what's interesting about their approach to architecture
or 3D modeling compared to architects
when we're practicing is
you can go into any architecture firm,
or even as people work from home today,
and you will see, you know, headphones,
like people are wearing headphones,
they're listening to music,
and it is this background experience.
We've taken that background experience
and placef it in the forefront of our design exercises.
So our young people are looking up words on their phone.
They're listening to music
because you can't just listen or you can't only read lyrics.
You also have to listen to the music
and find other ways that emcees may have stretched words,
pronounced them differently.
And many words that visually don't rhyme,
but they made them rhyme.
So it is a very unique and fun process.
And this young lady here is laughing because, you know,
she's starting to discover words that rhymed
when she listened to the song
versus simply reading the lyrics.
Then the next step with The Hip-Hop Architecture Camp
is learning about 3D printing.
So our young people 3D print those models.
Again, their first time 3D printing for architects
and urban planners.
This may look like a city,
but for any young person that may have created it,
they might argue you down until you, you know,
"That's not a city, that's lyrics from Chance the Rapper."
Today, you know, here are some of those other models,
some explorations by myself
that looks at taking music and converting it into cities.
And most recently, you know,
here are models that actually launched as a NFT series.
So if you are looking at NFTs, you know,
it's definitely something of interest today,
but I've taken music and created a series of NFTs
called "Architecture is Frozen Music."
The very last thing that we do at The Hip-Hop Architecture Camp
is make music, right?
Wouldn't be a Hip-Hop Architecture Camp
if we didn't make music.
And we sometimes create music
as a response to things that are happening
in the young people's neighborhoods or communities.
Sometimes we give them prompts
as to what do you wanna see in your neighborhood?
If you can design any building you want
in your neighborhood, what would it be?
Or we might respond to, again,
things that are actually happening.
This was a camp that we ran maybe in 2017 or 2018
in my hometown of Detroit.
And we wanted to look at
some of the historic Black neighborhoods, in this case,
Black Bottom, also known as Paradise Valley.
So on the left,
this is Hastings Street, it's a major thoroughfare
through Black Bottom.
And then the Highway Construction Act is passed
and just like many cities across the United States,
these expressways were built,
but somehow, the most convenient route for the expressways
was always through established Black communities.
Places that had some of the first Black banks,
Black hospitals, Black businesses, again,
thriving Black hubs in cities,
decimated with the construction of expressways.
So the state of Michigan and the city of Detroit
is looking at righting this wrong
by capping this expressway
and recreating a major thoroughfare
in the city of Detroit.
So we got wind of it,
talked with the city planning department and others,
and created a Hip-Hop Architecture Camp,
where we used music from Detroit emcees
to re-imagine what that thoroughfare would be,
but also to bring up the discussion
that any land that is recreated over the top of the expressway
shouldn't be given to the developer with, you know,
the highest bid or the most capital.
But how does the state of Michigan find ways
to redistribute that land to former business owners
or residents who were bought out for pennies on the dollar,
in the name of eminent domain, to build that expressway.
So we brought in former residents
or children of former residents.
They talked with our young people
and our city or the street that we recreated, again,
was based on music from Detroit artists.
So that music, we have a rap battle.
Our young people, they're in a cipher.
And we select the top young folks.
We take them to a recording studio,
their song recorded, it's mixed and mastered.
And then we take all of the young people out
and we make a music video.
We were talking to a young lady, asking her, you know,
"Where do you wanna go film this music video in the city?"
And she said that she wanted to go to this exact bridge.
And she wanted to film her rap on that bridge.
"I don't care what other people do,
but I want my verse to be on that bridge."
So we did our best.
We do this in every single city that we go to.
We did our best to find that bridge.
And they're gonna see,
I'ma play a clip from that music video.
But the first young lady is over the expressway
and the second young lady is in downtown Detroit.
But these are lyrics written by the young people.
Even a chorus, which says "Black Bottom."
They got so hyped on a bus.
We had to start filming on the bus,
as we rode to our first stop.
[hip-hop music] * Black Bottom
* Making a change
* We gotta let the people know
* Detroit's coming
* No one-man show
* Making a change
* Black Bottom's the key
* We haven't forgot
* Look and see
* Building banks schools and hospitals too
* Detroit's brand new
* Y'all hating
* Thank you
* Staying strong
* Am I wrong
* Penetrating my dreams through the song
* My intuition not playing my supposition
* Got nothing all in my system
* Just rapping like it's addictive
* Born and raised in the 313
* Counting money getting paid like I'm a G
* You can see in the paper
* Just to clear my head in the future
* I'm gon' be rich off the bread
* Black Bottom was the place to be
* They tore down the great community
* Black Bottom
* You should take notes
* 'Cause we the best
* Don't stress be blessed
* Put it to the test
* Now let's talk about Black Bottom for a sec
* It had the rich soil
* Man it really was the best
* But now it's gone
* It was taken away
* Replaced with Lafayette Park
* Wish it was here to stay
* But it's not
* So let's talk about Hastings Street
* The place where the free world is finna bring the heat
* Let's go
- So when our young people are writing songs,
like, it is a very conscious effort
to have these educational components
within our music.
So the last young lady, she's rapping,
she's talking about Hastings Street,
the expressway that replaced Hastings Street,
as well as Lafayette Park,
which was a development by a very famous architect.
And then we also explore different writing types
or writing skills.
So the young lady before her
who's rapping with the tall building in the background,
she mentions, you know, in the future,
"I'ma be rich off the bread."
And for most people, you think it's a young girl saying
you know, she's gonna be rich when she grows up.
But what she saying is that, you know,
she developed a bakery on Hastings Street.
That was part of the development that she created.
And she wanted to own a bakery when she grew up.
So she said, "In the future, I'ma be rich off the bread."
So our young people learn about how
complexities can be added to music.
And a lot of our songs, you know,
have these extra layers that are oftentimes missed.
The next young man is a video from Chicago.
It was the video from Chicago.
One of the hilarious things about
The Hip-Hop Architecture Camp
is when we are traveling around, we, you know,
have a bus, we're rolling around a city,
and we get off the bus,
we have a camera crew, we have lights,
and most people have no idea who it is
that's being filmed.
And they start taking pictures.
They come up and talk to the young folks.
And when our young people tell them,
"Hey, I'm studying architecture."
It's hilarious to see the people's faces.
'Cause they thought they just met
like the next up-and-coming rapper.
But this young man is,
the next young man is at the Bean in Chicago.
* We 'bout to build the hood that we living in
* Guns used for killing
* In places we should be chilling
* Blood used for spilling
* In places we should be finishing
* But we're not
* Creating a New Chicago
* So the killing has to stop
* We gotta make peace, make chage
* Team work, no pain, no lames
* No haters tryna change the game
* We gotta grow, take it slow
* Let 'em know
* We're rebuilding Chicago
* So the crime gotta go
- So this young man, again, been at the Bean
and you can see all the people standing behind us right there,
in that reflection under his elbow.
It was a hilarious experience to have people come up to you
and find out that you're studying architecture,
not, you know, filming a music video
for some a rap label.
During the pandemic,
we had to make a little bit of a shift
and went 100% virtual.
When we have a Hip-Hop Architecture Camp,
no matter where it is, we always bring a celebrity
to talk with our young folks.
And the reason why is
I can talk till I'm blue in the face
about architecture as a great profession to explore.
But I know that my voice will be amplified
if I'm standing shoulder-to-shoulder
with hip-hop artists
who really have the pulse of the community,
who can amplify my voice and reach even more young folks.
So throughout the camp, we've had people,
rappers like Lupe Fiasco.
We've also had NBA stars like Damian Lillard
of the Portland Trailblazers, who also has a rap album,
come to The Hip-Hop Architecture Camp.
In 2020, when we went virtual,
we had Angela Yee from the Breakfast Club
come and kick off The Hip-Hop Architecture Camp,
where she talked about her own development projects
and some of the design processes
that she's went through for some of the businesses
that she's opened.
And then our young people
had to film their own music videos.
So this young lady created,
her design concept was for a community center
that she called Art 606.
So our rap battle was a little different.
You had to film your own music video at home.
And then once again, when we pick those top videos
that talked about their projects,
I'm gonna let you listen to her rap.
* We individuals sufferin' always cynical
* Cryin' 'cause of the visuals visible out our windows
* Creative minds that are treated
* Like they omissible
* Building if it's permissible
* And kids can't act like kids no mo'
* I wanna make a place where folks like me
* Don't have to face a limited reality
* And limits on the things they make
* You wanna go and paint a mural
* You wanna do some break dancing
* The sky it ain't a limit where we all create
* A net of safety for the youth
* That's always on the run
* My POC, LGBT we wanna see the sun
* We got the gardens yes but listen
* 'Cause the work ain't done
* Come and produce
* Come on and sing
* Come on and have some fun
* Escape from guns and violence
* From the oppressive silence
* From noise the plastic barriers
* That rip and still confine us
* We are the artists and we make and make
* Until they blind us
* We are the architects
* We build over our own horizons *
- So this young lady, again,
she designed her community center,
and we don't ask our young people to present.
Y'know, "Here's my 3D model.
"Here's my elevation.
Here's my floor plan."
We allow our young people to use the voice
that they have.
The voice that has reverberated around the world.
There's no community that you can go to in any city,
any state or any country, and they don't have hip-hop.
Young kids in Detroit, in the Bronx, in LA,
they're constantly being told, "Don't talk like that.
"Don't walk like that.
Don't dress like that."
But when you turn on TV, you see major companies
that are marketing their products,
their brand, it's all based on how young people
in those communities walk, talk, and dress.
But the originators are constantly being told,
"Don't do it," while others make millions
acting like some of these originators.
So with The Hip-Hop Architecture Camp,
we say, "Bring that voice, bring that creativity,
"bring those rhythms, those patterns, those textures,
bring it into architecture."
And as we introduce our young Black and Brown students
to architecture, we're doing it in a way
that sets them apart from their peers.
And so when you come to a Hip-Hop Architecture Camp,
don't expect to hear a typical architecture presentation.
Ours get a little hype.
The Hip-Hop Architecture Camp is something
that's not only for young people.
The Hip-Hop Architecture Camp
has also ran programs for hip-hop artists.
I always say that hip-hop architecture is not a discussion
if it's all architects sitting at a table,
talking about how they can bring hip-hop into architecture.
It is something that has to be done as a community.
So crazy story, I do that TEDx.
I have lectures that are happening around the country,
uploading videos to social media.
I get a message from Lupe Fiasco.
He says, "Hey, I'm studying modern architecture.
"I just watched your TEDx with another group of emcees
"and we wanna talk to you.
Here's my number, give me a call."
I'm looking at my phone, I'm like,
"This has to be a prank call."
And what makes it even more ironic is that
I was in Chicago, which is where Lupe is from,
the day that he sent me that message.
So I reached out to him, you know,
we developed a relationship.
I had numerous conversations,
and we eventually came to the point of, you know,
needing to bring more people to these discussions
that we're having.
And so I created this event called The Design Cypher
for designers and architects out there.
It's like a charette,
but we're not using that language;
we're using our language.
It's a cypher, right?
We're wanna come together, we're gonna throw ideas,
we're thinking on our feet.
So we did this event in San Francisco.
I invited the architects and designers.
Lupe invited the emcees.
And we spent about three or four days
in a maker space, but not just a regular maker space.
This was at Autodesk headquarters.
So that's a maker space on steroids.
So the same curriculum that our young people walk through,
I walked the group, you know,
some of the most creative emcees that exist ever,
I walked them through that process.
So we talked about, you know,
how you can convert lyrics into architecture.
We 3D printed.
We also taught emcees.
This is emcee, his name is Daylight.
Daylight is most known for, you know, being a battle rapper.
His vocabulary far exceeds the vocabulary of most emcees.
And we taught them how to create 3D models
of their verses.
So they were writing verses on the spot
and we're creating 3D models on the spot,
we're 3D printing those items.
And then we started to do things like
explore those cities in virtual or augmented reality.
So we'll have emcees write, we'll create the structures,
and then we'll have that emcee walk through.
And then you started to hear emcees say,
"Hey, I might need to write something more complex,"
go back, rewrite, and then let's walk
through that city again.
And then the fun started after that.
If that wasn't enough fun, we started to see,
how can we take words such as rap, R-A-P
and turn it into a W-R-A-P.
So taking a rap and turning it into a wrap.
This was a ton of fun.
But for the people who came in
midway through this experience, it was very confusing
what we were talking about.
Is it a rap or is it a wrap?
But what we wanted to do was take a rap, take music,
extract the patterns and the textures,
turn it into textiles,
and then wrap ourself with a rap.
So it started off as these hilarious games that we,
or jokes that we were playing.
People made mats or carpets,
turned to a lot of things during those sessions.
And eventually, I created these wraps.
I created the wraps.
And these are things that I would give away to our guests.
When they would come to a Hip-Hop Architecture Camp,
you'll give them a wrap.
Sometimes we would give them a 3D printed model
of their music, and the first thing they would say is,
you know, "What is this?"
And we would tell them that "It's your music,
it's your song."
They'll look baffled.
And then once you start rapping
and you're pointing to each part of that model,
or in this case, the wrap, the jacket,
their minds are blown
that their music can be experienced
as something besides a sonic experience.
Also, in 2020 as The Hip-Hop Architecture Camp went virtual,
y'know, it was impossible to not take note
of everything that was happening around the country.
The, you know, demands for justice,
the uprisings that were happening.
And for me as an architect, you know,
I called on my peers, called on architects,
urban designers, to stand up and speak up.
And not be complacent with creating the backdrops
of injustices.
All of the films, the videos that you're seeing,
like you can see architecture, plazas.
It's happening in parks,
public spaces that have been designed by someone.
And that was never the intent of the spaces that we created.
That was not the program that we planned for
to happen in our spaces.
And I challenged architects and designers to say,
"We are no longer content with creating the backdrops
for this display that constantly happens."
We're gonna come from that background.
Some people heard it, some people didn't.
Eventually, this discussion hit home for me,
a firm that I was working at.
You know, I made a statement that
I wouldn't work for an architecture firm
that has any involvement with jails, prisons,
detention centers, or any, you know,
work that is related to the criminal justice system.
And I found out that the firm that I was working with
was doing that type of work here in the state of Wisconsin.
And I found out in the worst way.
I was asked to work on a project,
starting off by doing a, you know,
counting how many jail cells
and holding cells for juveniles a facility had.
I'm like, "Why are we counting these?
"What is this project?
What's going on?"
And I wrote a resignation letter.
I was picked up by The New York Times ,
picked up by local publications as well,
such as The Cap Times , but what I wanted to do, you know,
I left the firm and my hope was to work solely on
diversifying our profession.
Why do architects build prisons and jails
knowing that the policies that will be created
will target Black and Brown folks?
So that product, that jail or prison
could actually be filled with bodies.
I've told architects, you know, "You're sitting at the table
and you're asking the wrong questions."
Instead of asking about materials
that the buildings will be built with,
instead of asking about your construction schedules
or budgets, I wanna ask
how the hell do Black people keep ending up
in these fucking prisons, all right?
We are more than bricks and mortar, all right?
We are problem solvers.
And sometimes our profession, you know,
sometimes people within our profession limit themselves
to brick and mortar, and I wanted to push that.
So I turned back to Lupe and said,
"Hey, let's start a competition.
I'm no longer at my office."
We launched a competition
that challenged people to combine hip-hop
and architecture as a form of design justice.
Shout out to one of my boys, Brian Lee,
a fellow architect who's based in New Orleans,
who's like the leader of the design justice movement.
So Lupe and I, we did a Saturday afternoon Zoom session,
and we had about 600 or so people join this Zoom session,
which was the launch of this competition,
where we challenged people
to listen to what's been said already
throughout the history of hip-hop.
Use those as design prompts
to create new places, spaces, or things
that can help with the cause for justice.
So one of the winners was a student at Georgia Tech,
he took a verse from an artist, Joey Bada$$,
where Joey was saying that we need more surveillance
on the people who are giving surveillance
to our neighborhoods.
And what this participant created was
what he called the autonomous witness vehicle.
This was again, all based on these lyrics from Joey Bada$$,
but this drone would be deployed
whenever a police officer, you know,
pulled over a driver or stopped a pedestrian.
The drone would be deployed,
it would create a 3D scan of the entire scene.
It will capture audio and video.
And then this would be immediately released
to the public in a public database,
eliminating a need for officers to create police reports,
because it will be created for them.
And it will not be mixed with emotion
such as "I felt threatened.
I feared for my life,"
the same narrative that led to, you know,
the murder of Black and Brown folks.
So this was one of the winning submissions,
and we had a number of submissions that were, you know,
equally as great
from not only architects and designers,
but students and people that were not architects.
After that competition,
I was asked by the city of Madison to,
if you recall, a lot of cities were, you know,
starting to board up storefronts
in response to some of the uprisings
that were taking place.
And a lot of the agitators who disguised themselves
in the crowds of people who were calling for justice
who were solely out there to, you know, destroy property
and got the media somewhere else,
instead of the talks about justice.
So I was asked by the city of Madison
to come and create a mural.
I had about two hours to get a mural together.
An artist was unable to fulfill
the mural that they wanted to create.
So a friend reached out, said, "Hey, can you do a favor?"
I said, "Yes, I can do it."
I created this mural called "526 Missed Opportunities."
So "526 Missed Opportunities" represents
the number of seconds that Officer Chauvin
had his knee on George Floyd's neck.
And again, this was 526 missed opportunities
to stop this unnecessary death.
And I was joined by a fellow architect here in Madison,
Rafeeq Asad, and a young emcee
who performed at the space once we finished it.
When I created this mural,
it had a great response from the community,
but because of some of the media coverage,
people wanted to attach their narratives to the piece.
So it was destroyed twice after it was completed.
The first time, the city found someone who could fix it
and restore it.
The second time, the lady completely destroyed the piece.
And turned into a case of a stalker,
trips to court, et cetera.
But when doing some interviews about the piece being destroyed,
a company, Herman Miller, you know,
see me and see my story
and reached out with a simple question:
How can we help?
And I teamed with Herman Miller to create
a approach that would bring interior designers
and architects to the table
to discuss some of the injustices.
Again, with architecture being, you know,
less than 2% of architects being African-American,
a lot of architects find it very easy to say,
"I don't know what to do.
"I don't know what to say.
I don't know how to get involved."
So Herman Miller, when they reached out
to say "How can we help?"
I said, "Give me one of your prized possessions."
It is the Eames chair.
It is, this is the most iconic piece
of modern architecture.
Well, modern furniture created by Charles and Ray Eames.
I said, "I wanna take that chair
"and bring this statement that Charles and Ray Eames made
when they created the chair, I wanna bring that to 2020."
When they created the chair, they called it a special refuge
from the strains of modern living.
Very powerful statement to make
back then when creating this chair.
I said, "How do Black people escape
the strains of modern living," right?
We're dying because,
or we're being murdered while we sleep in our beds.
As we go to a store, as we sell CDs.
We're being murdered as we jog in our communities,
our neighborhoods.
What is our refuge from the strains of modern-day living?
And I wanted to create a mural on this chair.
What I ended up doing was taking a chair,
totally remixing it.
Going back to my roots from Highland Park and Detroit.
I had a automotive company repaint the chair.
Chair was painted black with these highlights of red.
And then I wrote the names of victims of police brutality
on the chair.
Not just police brutality,
I'll say victims of racial violence
throughout the United States' history.
Then I created this audio piece and this video
that we shipped with the chair around to different celebrities,
community organizers, people who had boots on the ground
and was working to create that special refuge
from the strains of modern-day living
in their own way in their cities.
This became a interview series through Instagram,
where again, I interviewed these community organizers
or celebrities about the work that they were doing
after they had a chance to listen to this audio,
which I'll play for you.
[soft music]
- Crowd: [in unision] No justice, no peace!
- Child: [sobbing] We are Black people
and we shouldn't have feel like this.
We shouldn't have to protest because
y'all treating us wrong.
We do this because we need to have rights.
It's a shame that our fathers and mothers are killed,
and we can't even see them any more.
- Woman: That's right. - Child: It's a shame that
we have to go to the graveyard and bury them.
We need our fathers and mothers
to be by our side.
- Child: He used to carry me on his back all the time.
- Woman: Was that fun?
- Child: Uh-huh, it was super fun.
- Woman: What was fun about it?
- Child: Like, you'd be up the sky, like a airplane.
- Woman: What would he say to you?
- Child: He loved me a lot.
- Reporter: Gianna heard the news
of her father's death on television.
- Woman: And she said, "How did he die?"
And I say, "He couldn't breathe." [sobs]
- So the proceeds from this chair, again,
it was a one piece, it wasn't a line of chairs.
It's one piece that we created.
We shipped it around the country.
And then the proceeds from this chair
went to a group of architects and designers
who worked with victims of racial violence
to remodel their homes.
So these architects provided pro bono services
to a victim of racial violence here in the state of Wisconsin,
who is now wheelchair-bound after their ordeal.
Some of those stories that you just don't see
after these names are no longer in the media,
like their life has totally changed.
And this was a group of architects
and contractors who wanted to provide free services
to help get some work done.
So some of the proceeds helped reduce the construction cost
at that person's home.
And one of the last things here is, you know,
we created new ads for the Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman.
One of those original ads on the left
shows a dad and his son, again, you know,
resting in that refuge.
But for my son and I, it's totally different.
You know, our eyes are open, we're not resting.
And I have to share as much information
as I can with my son so that his name
is not another name on that chair,
but in also making sure that I'm around
and I'm not another name that ends up into this chair.
So we called it a chair that makes you take a stand.
It's not a chair that you're gonna sit in.
It's a chair that you're gonna see,
it's a chair that makes you take a stand.
Again, just playing on words and similar to hip-hop.
But to get out and make a move.
And now that we are close to time,
I'm gonna fly through a last project,
which is a Universal Hip-Hop Museum.
It's a project in the Bronx that I'm currently working on
alongside some big names in hip-hop,
like Kurtis Blow, LL Cool J, Nas, and many others.
This was the first site of the Universal Hip-Hop Museum.
It's the Old Bronx County Courthouse.
When I was contacted by Kurtis Blow,
who I actually met here in Wisconsin
at the University of Wisconsin,
which is how I got involved with The Hip-Hop Museum.
I met him, he's like, "Hey, why don't you come out?
We need you to sit down with us and make a design."
I said, "No way, I'm not gonna put that pressure on myself.
"I'm gonna bring some other Black architects
and designers with me."
So I called all my friends
from the National Organization of Minority Architects.
And we went out and we held the Design Cypher,
where we were with, you know, legends in hip-hop.
People like Kurtis Blow, who's pictured at the top.
The Sugarhill Gang and many others.
During this Design Cypher,
we came up with concepts for converting
the Bronx County Courthouse into a museum.
I came back to Wisconsin and worked with students
at Madison Area Technical College
to create some of the exhibits,
some of the ideas and concepts that were discussed
by the artists themselves.
Then we went back to the courthouse, teamed with Netflix,
and did a special screening of The Get Down ,
a series that talks about the birth of hip-hop.
It's not a documentary, it's more of a drama,
but we did a special screening of The Get Down
in what was to be the, you know,
the future home of The Universal Hip-Hop Museum.
So people like A$AP Rocky, Jaden Smith, Grandmaster Flash,
Grand Wizzard Theodore, a lot of heavy names in hip-hop
were there at that screening.
But, without going into a great amount of detail,
The Universal Hip-Hop Museum did not have site control
of this building.
We had to find a new location, which we found.
It's now part a development called The Bronx Point.
And it is now under construction.
But this is some of the images
from the exhibits at the Universal Hip-Hop Museum,
created by the exhibit designer, Ralph Appelbaum Associates.
I created a five-city community engagement strategy,
going around the country,
asking people what should be in the museum.
That information was given to Ralph Appelbaum.
And some of the first exhibits were created
for The Universal Hip-Hop Museum.
And so being a licensed architect,
working in the education field as well,
I often find ways to, you know,
do humanitarian projects where my students
can have opportunities to work with me
and where hip-hop architecture can be used,
not just to introduce people to architecture,
but to actually solve some of the problems
that you hear in the music.
Like, let's go out and solve some of the issues.
So our first international program was in Kenya,
just outside of Nairobi,
where I teamed with the Samburu Girls Foundation,
University of Wisconsin-Madison,
Lupe Fiasco, and a company, Zero Mass Water,
where we went to Dr. Kulea's organization
and provided the young girls there...
She rescues young girls from some traditional practices
which have been outlawed, like female genital mutilation
and other practices, which are hard to police
in some of the rural areas.
So she rescues them, brings them to her campus,
pays for their education,
but a lot of their structures on their campus
are self-built and they don't have plumbing,
so they don't have access to water.
So what we did was,
we created a camp for them to visualize
or conceptualize their campus,
but more importantly, teamed with Lupe Fiasco,
Zero Mass Water to bring water to their campus.
So Zero Mass Water created these water panels,
or they're called hydro panels,
where it extracts water vapor from the air,
condenses it, turns it into drinking water.
Lupe Fiasco is a board member
and one of the funders for Zero Mass,
but they did this all at no cost to the Samburu Girls Foundation
or The Hip-Hop Architecture Camp.
So it was an architect combining
with a hip-hop artist to solve a problem.
Here are some of the taps
that were added to the building afterwards.
So hip-hop architecture is not just an exploration
into architecture.
It is a way to solve some of the problems
that we constantly hear about in our music.
Our goal is to one day
go back and reconstruct or construct a new kitchen.
This is the current kitchen that they have
at the Samburu Girls Foundation.
So we wanna make sure that water doesn't get recontaminated
as they cook for, you know,
over 200 girls in this outdoor kitchen.
So that's one of our goals when we return.
But I'm gonna end my presentation there
by saying that we service over 3,200 kids
in 24 U.S states and in over three countries.
And we haven't charged a single penny
to any of the young people who participated in our program.
If you wanna know how to support,
you can make a donation by going to hiphoparchitecture.com.
You can sponsor a camp.
If you are a architecture firm, you can host an intern,
or if you can't do any of those first three,
you can just share our content on social media.
So thank you again.
And here's my social media handles.
But looking forward to answering some of the questions
that you might have.
But Phil, I will turn it back over to you.
- Thanks, Michael.
Really, really,
thanks for that really engaging presentation
and talk, very inspiring.
Yeah, let's go ahead and go right into the questions.
First question is from Alexa.
Who created the code for the bar extraction?
- A great question, Alexa.
Now, that's something that was co-created
between myself, the young people,
and the hip-hop artists, you know,
that participate in some of our programs.
So it's a co-creation that constantly evolves
as we do more camps and as more hip-hop artists
are exposed to our process.
- Thanks, Alexa.
Next question from Erica.
What's the relationship between architecture
and urban planning?
And a follow-up question would be architecture
and landscape architecture don't exist in a vacuum.
Can hip-hop translate to urban planning as a whole?
- Yeah, I think the TEDx that I gave, you know,
will give you a even more detailed answer
than what I'll give you now.
But the relationship between architecture and urban planning,
I mean, urban planning, you know,
creates neighborhoods, communities,
larger scale developments,
and then architects come in and create the architecture
that is within that urban scale plan.
And can hip-hop translate to urban planning?
Yes, that's the examples that we give
during the camp, and hip-hop,
I make an argument during that TEDx that, you know,
hip-hop was birthed or born from bad urban planning.
It is a reaction to bad architecture,
a reaction to bad urban planning.
And I call out a lot of the architects
who are constantly celebrated for their approaches to design.
And I actually say maybe they were not the geniuses
that we think they were
because they created some of the worst conditions
for Black and Brown people that necessitated
the birth of hip-hop culture.
One thing that, to add to that is, some people
when they hear me talk about some of the architects
and urban planners that, you know,
laid this horrible foundation
that necessitated the birth of hip-hop,
and I make a joke saying that they're the forefathers
of hip-hop.
Some people took that and like, "Oh, yes,
he thinks that someone else created hip-hop."
No, this is a way to tangibly tie bad urban planning
to architecture and urban design,
and to not restrict the...
Well, to not blame people who live in public housing
or in under-resourced areas.
Don't blame them for the conditions
of their neighborhoods and communities.
There's an architect or urban planner somewhere
who actually set and created those environments.
And they did not question the policies
that were gonna be housed within
the architecture that they created.
So I'm bringing the sense of design justice, you know,
to those individuals
that we constantly celebrate in architecture.
- Thanks, Erica, for that question.
Next one is from Brandon.
How do you work and prepare others
for how to work with,
and in an industry that's primarily dominated
by white people, well-meaning white people
who only talk about change and only in surface level types,
surface level types of engagement?
- Yeah, I think organizations out there like
The National Organization of Minority Architects.
I'm the president of our Wisconsin Chapter.
I think those organizations assist in
challenging some of those statements
that are oftentimes put out by firms
that make them look like allies, but organizations like NOMA,
organizations such as Design Justice,
The Hip-Hop Architecture Camp,
you know, we challenge them to go beyond those statements.
One of the big things for me is
put your money where your mouth is,
and then also, you know, change your leadership.
If you look at most architecture firms,
you scroll through their leadership profiles,
it will be hard to come by a face that's Black or Brown.
And they can easily change that.
What does it take for you to
give that person who's been working at your firm
for 20, 30 years?
Give them a leadership role.
Why haven't they received a leadership role?
You know, those questions are being asked, you know,
in very tactful ways,
lots of reports being put out by American Institute of Architects
about compensation discrepancies,
testing discrepancies, right.
Why is it such a low number of African-American architects?
Is it something in the testing process?
Is it something, you know,
academically that happens before we even take an exam?
So it's not one thing that one person will do,
but it's gonna take all of those organizations
coming together to help make architecture
more palatable for Black and Brown folks
who are introduced to the profession.
- Great.
Thanks, Brandon, for that question.
Aspen has a question.
Have you been able to discuss Hip-Hop Architect's mission
to any policy makers?
Awareness gets the ball rolling
and puts pressure on the decision-makers.
The folks experiencing racial bias
and over-policing et cetera know it isn't right.
Our policymakers need to make it right.
Make it right in our laws.
- Yeah, one of the interesting things
about the start of The Hip-Hop Architecture Camp,
when we started here in Madison,
it was a collaboration with the city of Madison
and Madison Public Library.
And the first event that we did
was looking at the city's comprehensive plan.
So 25 years into the future,
what are things we need to do now
so that the city of Madison
becomes whatever it is that the residents want it to become
25 years from now?
So The Hip-Hop Architecture Camp was
this community engagement strategy
where the young people, who the city was having a problem
trying to get them to come out
to some of those engagement sessions
to talk about the future of the city,
The Hip-Hop Architecture Camp came in
and we used hip-hop as that tool
for the young people to communicate
what they wanted in their cities,
their neighborhoods, and it was actually picked up.
You know, if you look at
the city of Madison comprehensive plan right now,
you can see references from The Hip-Hop Architecture Camp.
So that's one example of how we actually partnered with
and had conversations with policy makers
through The Hip-Hop Architecture Camp.
And then myself, you know, as a public speaker, you know,
I've had the opportunity to go out
and speak with a number of organizations,
politicians, et cetera, about why it's important to have
diversity in architecture, you know,
having that seat at the table to bring up some of these things
that again, 98% of our profession
just might not be aware of.
- Yeah.
Another question from Carissa,
when hip-hop translates into frozen architecture,
are there any high correlations between things
like proven successful land use practices,
like transit-oriented development
that promote a higher quality of life?
Is there anything that has come out of the input and output
or that input and output?
- Yeah, that's a great question.
And you know, something that we're constantly reviewing,
like what is the frozen music?
What types of cities do they represent?
When you freeze a song from one artist,
can you actually compare that frozen structure
to another city?
Does it look like New York?
Does it look like Chicago?
Does it have the density of some suburban areas?
And that's more of a design exploration,
but the thing that's more important
is not just making the frozen music.
The thing that we hold closest to our heart
is the 50 years of critiques that have been unresponded,
that no one has responded to in hip-hop.
50 years of artists talking about urban planning policies
and architecture that has been detrimental
to the lives of Black and Brown folks.
And we spent time dancing to it
and not any time responding to it architecturally.
So I don't care what the structure looks like
when young people go through that exercise.
It's an exercise and an approach to making something physical.
But what we're really responding to again,
are the messages in the music.
We're not responding to what that physical piece is
once you go through that exploration.
Our big response is again, to the 50 years backlog
of complaints from residents and users of public spaces.
- Next question is from Gail.
Do you have NFTs yourself?
- Yeah, yeah.
So the NFTs I showed during the talk
are definitely available.
So if people are on platforms like OpenSea,
that is a place where you can go.
My name is The Hip-Hop Architect,
and you can see a series of frozen music diagrams
that I have available as NFTs.
It's actually an auction for them
that ends at the end of February.
So go check it out.
- I'll definitely check that out myself, Michael.
Tony Wonderful asks,
how can we help amplify your much-needed work?
Great question.
- Yeah, that is a great question.
You know, it's two things I wanna point out.
One is social media.
Social media has been amazing in helping to amplify
what I've done already for young folks.
So like that story I told with Lupe Fiasco discovering
this TEDx because someone shared it on social media
and he's seen it.
So when I showed those four things you can do,
sharing is definitely one that goes a long way.
Sometimes people don't wanna share 'cause they say,
"I'm not giving any money so I'm not gonna share it
and make it look like I'm supporting."
No, sharing the music videos from the young folks,
sharing this lecture or other events goes a long way
in being able to, you know,
help find funders to provide this service to young people.
'Cause again, I do it for free.
We don't charge the young folks,
so we gotta get people's eyes on it to support.
And then the other way is tagging hip-hop artists,
you know, hip-hop artists who, when they make songs,
when you hear them talk about their neighborhood,
they talking about their city, they talking about they block,
they talk about they hood, right?
They're talking about architecture.
They may not have thought about it that way,
but they are definitely critiquing
whoever it is that designed their neighborhoods
and communities.
So start to tag them with The Hip-Hop Architecture Camp,
and you never know what might happen.
So gave you two very, you know, easy,
I'll say easy ways that you can support the camp
that doesn't cost you anything
but a little bit of time on social media.
- I love the tagging.
That is like a really, really great way to be involved.
Yeah, that's a great idea.
Another question from Jenna S, they ask,
how are you translating the lyrical city exercise
into real architectural design that you create
like The Hip-Hop Museum?
Is there a specific design language/shape language
that you're utilizing?
- Yeah, great, great question, Jenna.
So fortunately, I have a number of projects
that's allowing me to use this process.
The Hip-Hop Museum being one, you know,
when the Universal Hip-Hop museum is open,
one of our goals is
that you'll be able to use this process
on a much larger scale.
All right, you seen one of the exhibit images
that we showed from Ralph Appelbaum,
but you'll be able to go into that museum,
see the lyrics happen.
You'll be able to see, you know, the rhythms and the patterns
and be fully immersed in the city
that's created by your favorite emcee.
And then there's other projects here locally in Madison,
National Guardian Life Insurance,
where I've taken that process that's primarily used for music
and I'm using it on their mission statement.
They're renovating their office.
And the lobby's a double height lobby
creating a, like a 24-foot-tall marble wall
that's about 15 feet wide,
but it is their mission statement,
but I used this same approach,
but instead of using it for music,
I used it for their statement,
and it's creating a similar textile
or patterns that you see with the music.
But again, it's based on their mission statement.
So they are literally putting their words in stone
in their building.
- Wow, that sounds very cool, very cool installation here.
This will be our last question for tonight.
This is from Zack.
Looks like, if a lot of the models created resemble--
It looks like a lot of the models created
resemble a gridded structure.
Have you guys explored the idea of breaking that
oppressive nature of the grid?
While the beat of a song may be the grid,
each emcee may bring a different flow
that isn't gridded to the environment
that is confetti, scattering, et cetera.
- Yeah, yeah, great question.
And that's an amazing question to end on.
You know, we have explored going outside of that grid,
you know, and you can look at the various flows
that exist in hip-hop.
One of the more recent ones being a triplet flow,
for people who are fans of Migos, right?
They have a totally different cadence.
You have people like Big Sean.
I gotta bring up a Detroit artist
who has the flow called the supa dupa flow, right?
These are things that breaks all of the early conventions
of writing music in hip-hop, and architecturally,
those, you know, they resemble those artists.
So that is something that we have explored
and something I explore a lot when I'm doing actual projects,
but for young children,
who've never made 3D models, you know,
introducing architecture in a way
that allows them to easily compare one artist
to the next, that grid comes in handy.
And as the process evolve, I'm with you, it's fuck the grid.
[both laughing]
- Yeah, no grid.
Totally agree, great.
Thanks, Michael.
And thanks for answering these really great questions.
And again, thank you
for sharing your time and your passion
and your inspiration with us all for tonight.
Really appreciate that.
- Cool, thank you, Phil,
thank you to everybody behind the scenes
who helped make this happen,
and thanks for everybody for spending your evening with us.
- Yeah, thanks again, Michael.
Before we close, I'd like to introduce, invite Ann Brusky
from the John Michael Kohler Arts Center
to share a few words.
There you go, Ann.
- Oh, thank you.
Wow! [laughs]
Oh, my goodness!
Thank you, Michael Ford.
My goodness!
What a great experience and thank you for sharing.
On behalf of the John Michael Kohler Arts Center,
we so appreciate you and the work you're doing.
We also wanna extend our appreciation to PBS Wisconsin
and the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design
for your partnership and support
to make this event happen tonight.
And thank you to everybody for staying online tonight
for this engagement; it was incredible.
The mission of the arts center is to generate
a creative exchange between artists and the public,
just as we did tonight.
And it's so invigorating.
But one of the reasons we are really excited
to be part of this particular dialogue
is that it ties in with our new exhibition
and programming theme happening in 2022
called "Ways of Being" in which we, the arts center,
works with artists to offer alternative possibilities
of being in the world.
Recontextualize our past, reorient our present,
and project new and viable futures.
Collectively asking, "What if?"
And as we can see tonight, we can definitely get "what if."
We'll explore ways of being throughout 2022.
And we hope that you all will come visit us
at the arts center for the exhibitions and the programming.
And also visit the recently opened Art Preserve,
which is an experimental space designed to house
the art center's collection
of over 35 artist-built environments.
There's free admission.
And for more information, including upcoming programming,
please visit jmkac.org.
Thank you so much, Philip.
- Yep, thank you, Ann.
I really appreciate that share.
I'll also like to introduce and invite Tracy Milkowski
from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design
to share a few words also.
Tracy. - Thank you so much, Philip.
Good evening, my name is Tracy Milkowski.
I'm the vice president for Institutional Advancement
at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design.
The Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design,
also known MIAD, is proud to be a co-sponsor
of tonight's event.
Thank you to PBS Wisconsin
and John Michael Kohler Arts Center,
as it has been an honor to work with you on this project.
Michael Ford, thank you so much for your presentation,
the humanitarian work that you do,
and the work you do to expose our youth
to design opportunities and careers
they may have never dreamed of, such as becoming an architect.
The Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design
is a four-year art and design college
located in the historic Third Ward in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Our students major in communication design,
product design, illustration,
fine arts, and interior architecture and design.
Nearly two-thirds of all MIAD students
are currently studying design.
MIAD has a new design internship program
for high school students in our community.
It is an amazing program
that introduces high school students
to art and design and the careers that are possible
within this field.
To learn more about this program and all of our programs at MIAD,
please visit MIAD, miad.edu.
Thank you again to everyone who made this event possible.
Michael Ford, thank you so much for your presentation
and thank you all to all those who joined us tonight.
- Okay, great, thanks, Tracy.
Thank you again for our partnerships for this event.
Thank you very much.
In closing, I wanna thank all of you for attending tonight.
I hope you were inspired as much as I was
with Michael's work,
and I hope that you guys can, you can carry this,
this inspiration to your own work,
as well as to your way into the world.
So I wish you all good night and hope you all will be well.
Take care, everyone.