Category Archives: Pasadena

Environmental Design students to envision “One Arroyo”

Image courtesy of the Arroyo Advisory Group

Image courtesy of the Arroyo Advisory Group

From fly-fishing and professional football to archery and bird watching, Pasadena’s historic Arroyo Seco serves as a 900-acre playground as diverse as the millions of urban sophisticates, suburbanites and nature dwellers who use it each year.

If Pasadena were to succeed in revitalizing the Arroyo’s 22-miles of trails and creating a singular vision for the canyon’s three distinct areas—the Hahamongna watershed, the Central Arroyo’s entertainment hub, and the rivers of the Lower Arroyo—the Arroyo Seco could rival New York’s Central Park, Chicago’s Lincoln Park, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park and L.A.’s own Griffith Park in esteem and recognition.

This Fall term, a team of Environmental Design students will try to do just that as they help reimagine Pasadena’s greatest outdoor space. Embedded in Environmental Design’s Sustainable Design Studio, faculty member Professor James Meraz will encourage students to design unique spatial experiences that are sustainable, eco-friendly and environmentally responsible, with the potential to encourage a critical dialogue and a new stewardship and symbiosis in our relationship to our Southern California eco-system.

The class will explore a wide-range of topics, including public furnishings, interactive installations, play equipment, hospitality spaces, way-finding and experiences that may reinvigorate surrounding trails and landscapes. As Environmental Design Department Chair David Mocarski recently explained to Pasadena Now, “Everything happens in the environment. And so the class is really looking at possibilities of reimagining and looking at how we can elevate people’s interaction with the Arroyo Seco.”

The class project stems from a collaboration between ArtCenter and the Arroyo Advisory Group, a citizen-led effort to develop a cohesive vision and implementatio

ArtCenter Alumni Notes: November 2015 through January 2016

Diana Thater, A Cast of Falcons, 2008. Four video projectors, display computer, and two spotlights. Installation Photograph, Diana Thater: The Sympathetic Imagination, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. ©Diana Thater, photo ©Fredrik Nilsen

Diana Thater, A Cast of Falcons, 2008. Four video projectors, display computer, and two spotlights. Installation Photograph, Diana Thater: The Sympathetic Imagination, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. ©Diana Thater, photo ©Fredrik Nilsen

With the holidays behind us and election season upon us for the foreseeable future, this is the perfect time to divert our attention to the edifying pursuit of creative fulfillment. And what better way to do that than with this extra bulky edition of ArtCenter Alumni Notes.

NEWS

Guy Bove (BS 96 Product Design) was recently featured in a Tatler Magazine Hong Kong article about watch design. Hong Kong Tatler

Edward Eyth (BS 85 Product Design) was on a panel discussion for his concept designer work on Back to the Future Part II as part of the Toyota Mirai premier event. Toyota Newsroom

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Blazing a luminous trajectory: Doug Aitken, Jen Rosenstein, Mark Ryden and Lawrence Carroll

Doug Aitken, Station to Station

Doug Aitken, Station to Station. Courtesy Regen Projects.

1. Since graduating from ArtCenter nearly 25 years ago, Doug Aitken (BFA 91 Illustration) has blazed a luminous trajectory. From his breakout Electric Earth video installation at the 1999 Whitney Biennial, to the nomadic Station to Station (2013), the Southern California native creates multimedia works at once monumental and ephemeral.

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ArtCenter master plan features affordable student housing and elevated quad and cycleway

ArtCenter’s vision for a South Campus student housing village, mobility hub, public gallery and park-like quad. (Image credit: Michael Maltzan Architecture / Tina Chee Landscape Studio)

ArtCenter’s vision for a South Campus student housing village, mobility hub, public gallery and park-like quad. (Image credit: Michael Maltzan Architecture / Tina Chee Landscape Studio)

ArtCenter College of Design has made public its new master plan, charting a 10-year vision for the future of the College’s physical campuses. At a November 12th reception, nearby residents and business leaders were treated to an early look at the visionary proposal that will provide students with innovative learning and making spaces as well as much-needed housing. The College plans to break ground in 2017, following the City of Pasadena’s review process, to create a thriving art and culture educational urban destination.

Highlights of the plan include an elevated park-like quad that spans the Metro Gold Line tracks, a transportation hub, a cycleway, the transformation of Raymond Avenue into a tree-lined pedestrian-friendly road and a student housing village.

“This is mission-driven growth informed by the College’s conservatory-like approach to education,” said Lorne M. Buchman, president of ArtCenter College of Design. “We’re sharing our vision for rich, intercultural and transdisciplinary dialogue, and our goal is to ensure that institutional development is synonymous with meaningful change in the surrounding community.”

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Capturing Car Classic 2015: Visions of the Future

 

For more than 10 years, ArtCenter’s Car Classic event has examined automotive culture and vehicle architecture through the lens of design. More than just another high-profile car show, this popular public event celebrates the very best in automotive design, showcasing the College’s strong ties to industry and honoring many of our noteworthy alumni. Car Classic 2015 provided attendees an up-close-and-personal look at a carefully curated selection of innovative vehicles, rare automobiles and stunning concept cars.

For any unfortunate souls who couldn’t attend, or for attendees who’d like to relive the magic, we dispatched two wildly talented Photography students, Christopher Stoltz and Brookes Treidler, to capture the spirit of the day. Their photos exemplify the theme for this year’s show, “Visions of the Future”, and demonstrate that whether it’s yesterday’s dream of the flying car, today’s shared driving experience or tomorrow’s autonomous vehicles, artists and designers have been depicting the future of transportation design—and bringing it to life—for generations.

From Beirut to outer space: TEDxACCD shows big things start small

The crowd outside the Ahmanson Theater.

The crowd outside the Ahmanson Theater.

ArtCenter College of Design has red balloons on its roof, Hot Wheels are being handed out at the entrance and throngs of students eagerly wait in the hallway. This is not a child’s birthday party; it’s ArtCenter’s TEDxACCD – a unique event where alumni and faculty speak to students and guests about their specialties.  For over 25 years, TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) has provided a platform for some of the most cutting edge conversations of the day. As a world-class art and design school committed to learning to create and influence change, TED offers a natural compliment to our goals. Continue reading

Classing up 1111 South Arroyo Parkway: Goodbye ’80s corporate office. Hello 21st-century atelier.

Faculty Deni Wohlgenuth teaches on the first day of class. Photo: Chuck Spangler

Faculty Deni Wohlgenuth teaches on the first day of class. Photo: Chuck Spangler

Take the 110 Freeway all the way to Pasadena and just try not to notice ArtCenter College of Design.

The College’s recently purchased six-story building at 1111 South Arroyo Parkway has undergone a makeover—its stucco exterior has been painted black and large “ArtCenter” logos adorn each side of its wraparound mirrored curtain wall—arguably giving the College its greatest public visibility in history.

But it’s what’s going on inside that structure that’s really impressive.

The beginning of the Fall term last week brought with it the arrival of hundreds of students to the building, all of whom are taking courses in the recently reimagined sixth floor of the building.

And what a reimagining it is. Continue reading

OUTSIDEIN exhibition assembles a pantheon of street artists to create mural-sized works illustrating public art’s expanding sphere of influence

RISK's OutsideIn installation on the north face of ArtCenter's Wind Tunnel building at 950 South Raymond Avenue. Photo by Chuck Spangler

RISK’s OUTSIDEIN installation on the north face of ArtCenter’s Wind Tunnel building at 950 South Raymond Avenue. Photo by Chuck Spangler

“Street art has exploded as an anti-authoritarian form of art making and an important global movement happening in the visual arts today,” said OUTSIDEIN curator and author G. James Daichendt in a recent TEDx speech, “The Streets As Canvas.” “Even if you’ve never stepped foot into a museum or gallery, you’ve been impacted by street art since it lives in the corners of our communities.”

In recognition of this phenomenon, ArtCenter College of Design has organized OUTSIDEIN, an expansive indoor and outdoor exhibition opening, with a public reception on October 8, 2015, and continuing through January 10, 2016, at multiple venues in Pasadena. Initiated by ArtCenter’s Illustration Department Chair Ann Field, the exhibition’s curatorial team also includes Daichendt and Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery Director Stephen Nowlin.

“Like many artistic insurgencies, street art has had to navigate around the pitfalls of its own commercial success to remain possessed of raw and vital meanings,” said Nowlin. “That tension, along with the breadth of street art’s current influence in contemporary design and visual culture, is what we set out to explore in OUTSIDEIN.”

Featured in the show are artists Olivia Bevilacqua, David Flores, CHASE, Robbie Conal, Cryptik, Jeanne Detallante, Shepard Fairey, James Jean, Geoff McFetridge, RISK, Kenny Scharf and Jeff Soto, who is an ArtCenter alumnus.

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Reach out and Art Someone

Still from film workshop video

Still from film workshop video

What started as a passion project for Alvin Oei, has morphed into an official and active ArtCenter student club that brings the disciplines of art and design to underserved kids in the community. This past summer, some sixteen Environmental Design, Film, Graphic Design, Illustration, Interaction Design and Product Design students participated in Art Reach volunteering in two separate local Boys & Girls club locations, offering a number of twice weekly workshops.

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You go, grads: Let the Summer Graduation festivities begin!

Graduating students with friends and family following Spring 2015 commencement. Photo: John Dlugolecki

Graduating students with friends and family following Spring 2015 commencement. Photo: John Dlugolecki

“Sun is shining. Weather is sweet. Make you wanna move your dancing feet.” Bob Marley

This Saturday, following a sometimes exhaustive, always intensive, memorably vigorous and astonishingly creative commitment to making and learning, 91 ArtCenter students will receive their diplomas. This will be the second graduation ceremony to be held at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, a thankfully climate-controlled venue conveniently located between Hillside and South campuses.

As the day approaches, let’s celebrate these creative and talented individuals who are about to take on the world. Here’s the lowdown for the week:

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