Object Guerilla: The Book II

Some time ago on the OG blog, I was pleased to announce the completion of my first manuscript, a DIY guide to the tao of the guerilla designer. Nine months on, I figured it's about time I offered up a little update on the progress of my toddling manuscript as it navigates its way upstream.

Shortly after mailing off a stack paper representing nearly ten years of my work, me and the lady hopped in the car and lit out from Chicago, taking a 5,500 mile road trip through the Southwest. Upon return, we packed our belongings into a remarkably small cubic volume and moved back east, landing in Baltimore, land of pleasant living (and my birth), in August. And then came the edits.

Pole Houses

This weekend, I helped my brother construct a deck on the back of his house. We got the foundations dug, inspected, and permitted, then spent two days pouring concrete and framing. I became intimately reacquainted with muscles that have lain fallow for quite some time . . . The deck will hover about 12' off the ground, with an entrance off of the kitchen and a winding staircase to the driveway. It overlooks a sloped yard, so the platform is eye-level with the leaves, floating in the trees.

William HolmanNovember 18, 2013pole house, ken kern, pierre koenig, deck construction, object guerillaComment

Belgian Solutions

David Helbich, an artist and photographer, has been living in Brussels, Belgium for the last eleven years. Brussels is the capital of the European Union, a complex patchwork of nations, languages, and ancient neighborhoods. The citizens are fragmented along various cultural lines, but co-exist in a city-state of blasé bonhomie. Helbich, a native German, began going on long walks to learn the geography of his new home. Eventually, he started taking his camera to document wrinkles in the urban fabric that he dubbed Belgian solutions.

Terror, Designed

Semantically, politics and war seem to track one another. They share the word campaign and the generic lexicon of fighting, filtering down through thousands of associated words thumbed up from the thesaurus. Now and again, design language seeps in around the edges, as in the architect of a strategy .

Design (n.)

a plan or drawing produced to show the look and function or workings of a building, garment, or other object before it is built or made.
purpose, planning, or intention that exists or is thought to exist behind an action, fact, or material object.

A Preliminary Atlas of the Killing Fields , by Tim Maly, refers to the second definition. He traces, through satellite photos, the planning and intention that exists behind the action (strike) of a material object (drone). He drew on the incident reporting of Dronestagram and other publicly reported sources. The strike itself was designed by a protocol that differentiates between targeted strikes on known enemies and signature strikes, which target groups of men by analyzing their patterns of movement.

William HolmanOctober 30, 2013drones, preadtor, reaper, terror designed, object guerillaComment

Jones Falls

I have lived in Baltimore for one out of the last ten years, plus a few month's worth of summer breaks. In the course of reacquainting myself with the city, I have taken to walking, an old habit that soothes my mind and settles my bones. My first effort was a transect, cutting down Falls Road and back, an easy loop of about 2-1/4 miles. This walk mirrored, and at times veered into, the Jones Falls, a historic waterway that reveals much about Baltimore's past, its present, and provides a startling vision of one possible future.

Guerilla Road Trip, Part 1

Object Guerilla has been dark for a few weeks because I've been on the road. The lady and I undertook a twenty-day, 5,500 mile trip across the American West, visiting national parks, scenic wonders, artistic oddities, and architectural phenomena. It was a guerilla trip, light and cheap. We spent very little, mostly on gas and food, couch-surfing, tent-camping, and AirBnB-ing to save cash. Upon our return to Chicago, we packed up and moved to Baltimore to pursue some new adventures in design and life.

On July 6th, we struck out bright and early for St. Louis, arriving in mid-afternoon, time enough to see the Arch and downtown before supper. After the touristy bits were dispensed with, we met up with my ReBuild colleagues Dayna Kriz and Rae Chardonnay at Blair House in Hyde Park.

William HolmanAugust 5, 2013guerilla, object guerilla, road trip, camping, rebuild st. louis, buckminster fuller, carbondale, marfa, dan flavin, donald juddComment