Section 001

Section 001 What is Section 001?

Section 001 is a collaborative studio of Industrial Design and Architecture students. Every year Section 001 partners with a different company or organization to design furniture for a need.

Project Brief

This year’s Section 001 is partnering with 3CDC, a non-profit corporation focused on revitalizing and connecting the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood with the Central Business District in Cincinnati. We have been tasked to design and produce a series of site-specific urban furniture installations for the parks they manage. The studio will conceive and produce installations that slip in between the notion of “public” and “space”.

history of space

From ancient Roman Empire to modern city dwelling society’s, public space has always been apart of human civilization. Though the way we interact with space has changed over the centuries, it still serves the same basic functions today as it did then.

Space has changed from being fully public and available to everyone, to being only reserved for the rich and powerful. The beginning of what we now understand as modern public space is all thanks to the industrial revolution and the rush of lower class citizens moving to cities. This once again made free public spaces a priority to cities.

Today there is more of a push than ever for people to have more access to land. Cities have responded by making once private land public again and there is now any number of malls, parks, farmers markets, beaches etc. While some still come with a cost or an incentive to purchase from private vendors, societies mindset has shifted from public spaces being a luxury to a necessity.

Want to take a deeper dive into our research?

Take a look at our final book which includes several chapter dedicated to research on space, controllers and users of space, and case studies.

Washington Square Park

The largest park in downtown Cincinnati and the focus of our design. An icon of downtown Cincinnati in the heart of the Over the Reign (OTR) neighborhood this park is flanked by the historic music hall and surrounded by residential housing and a bustling up and coming business district.

THE RISE (1789-1914)

This area of Cincinnati was once Fort Washington which quickly moved south in the early 1800’s to create room for the growing city. The land then changed hands and became the site of a cemetery for many of the churches in the area.

The city got ahold of the land and established the park in the 1860’s and soon after the Music Hall was built. In the last 1800’s the park held the Centennial Exposition to celebrate the settlement of the Northwest Territory and show off the best inventions of the Industrial Revolution.

The Fall (1914-2008)

With the beginning of WWI decline came to the neighborhood, the once booming beer hub collapsed under prohibition and the rising anti- German hysteria caused many of the original German residents to leave.

After the World Wars the poverty level of OTR began to climb and the Drop Inn Shelter was created to help homeless people find resources. This was just the beginning of the controversies surrounding anti-gentrification and poverty in the neighborhood that persist to this day.

In the early 2000’s protests and riots broke through the neighborhood in response to the killing of an unarmed black man. This deterred people even more from moving to the neighborhood and soon even the elementary school on the parks land had to close due to low enrollment. The population of the neighborhood was now a fraction of what it was in the 1900’s.

THE NOW (2008-Present)

After the destruction of the elementary school the land was giving to Cincinnati Parks and with 3CDC they began to formulate a renovation project to renovate the park. The park was completely overhauled and reopened in 2012 once again becoming an icon of OTR and the city at whole.

Since the renovation of the park the whole neighborhood of OTR has begun to be restructured and is now considered a must see spot in Cincinnati.

Our Mission

Help make the park serve as the epicenter of OTR’s multi-generational and multicultural district and to reflect the changing neighborhood.

Collaborative Research

The whole class collaborated on the research and evolution of what this project became, with digital and physical assets to connect our ideas and develop further. All concepts were worked off of everyone’s unique initial ideas and processes.

User Object Interaction

Ranking public space objects to draw inspiration for our project. We placed them into the categories of Education, Community, Relaxation, Necessity, Beauty, Adventure, and Entertainment. Within these categories, objects will be raked on a radar-like chart consisting of 5 criteria: Inclusion, Safety, Flexibility, Pragmatism, and Stimulation.

Site Visit

Once the initial ideation was underway we were able to go visit the park and interview some of the workers about furniture that they set up everyday and get their opinions on what changes they would like to see throughout the parks.

Initial Ideation

After deciding what the goals of our objects could be we began our ideation. Instead of doing traditional ideation or sketching techniques we used the illustration technique of Oki Sato to get quick and fast concepts before delving deeper into the probability of each design

group ideation pinups

The class split into 7 groups to refine some of the most promising ideations. These were developed into proposals that we prepared to present to 3CDC in the form of sketches and quick CAD developments.

Initial Proposal to 3CDC

We finalized all the proposals to 7 and then presented to 3CDC. It was ultimately 3CDC’s decision which projects we continues with. They chose 4 products for us to continue on into further development.

My main focus was Project Modular

While I did help with fabrication for all the projects moving forward, I was the main CAD developer and material specialist for project modular,

MoDular

Initial ideas for this project were inspired by sketches of multi-use furniture from classmates throughout the ideation phase. These sketches turned into a much deeper development into how users can interact with forms in a moveable playable way.

Modular Proposals

Proposal 1

This first CAD proposal was a study in how wood could be formed to create interactive and exciting sloped seats.

This form was later the inspiration for one of our other final products TURF that we installed in the park.

PROPOSAL 2

Second proposal was more fluid in form and less modular in its positioning. Looking through how to give users different options for ways to sit or experience sitting.

Proposal 3

At this point in our development we had a better understanding of the material that we would be able to utilize. This allowed us to really explore more forms that would have unique characteristics that would be enhanced by the nature of our collaboration with Cincinnati Inc.

Exploring materiality through Cincinnati Inc.

Cincinnati Incorporated is a build-to-order machine tool manufacturer with over 120 years in the industry. They partner with companies building innovative products. They specialize in custom software, dependable laser cutting systems, metal fabrication and automation equipment.

BAAM Printer

Cincinnati Inc. has a large scale Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) 3D printer that they use to print objects out of recycled or unused pellets. Most of the work they do is specific for the aerospace and architecture fields.

Models

Pitch to 3cdc

Presented to 3CDC the final proposal that we had been developing. Included small scale prints of our proposal and example prints from the BAAM printer.

Our project was chosen as an experimental project so we were set to focus our designs to full embrace this new technology and explore what kinds of boundaries we could push within the seating space.

Shape Iteration

Material Allowance

After talking to Cincinnati Inc. and pitching our proposals we dove into creating a better understanding of how the strength of our seating could be improved.

We developed a corrugated wave pattern to help support the walls of the prints and allow for more structural integrity especially around curves and edges.