FATVillage - EQUITABLE REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT
2020-21 | FATVillage - Equitable Real Estate Development
FATVillage, the downtown historic warehouse district, is burgeoning with productivity. Techies, designers, artists, and creative professionals call this daytime enclave home. Just miles north of Miami, soon under 30 minutes by high-speed rail, and with direct access as far north as Orlando. FATVillage has and is further developing an integration with artists and designers. An untold number of artists in Miami found opportunity in FATVillage during their journeys. The four block district itself is named after the 501c3 non-profit arts organization FATVillage Arts District Inc. Property owners Doug McCraw and Lutz Hofbauer created it to rally philanthropic support around sustaining an artist community. In 2015 the not-for-profit won a Knight Arts Challenge matching grant.
Despite not having the favorable collective forces, the sort that created the art hub in Miami via targeted investments from the private and public-sectors (cash and caché) building an art ecosystem, FATVillage has weathered the storms (literal and metaphorical) with resilience. No real stories of this community having to move north, west, or from one place to another at the whim of real estate deals. Exceeding demand, with a lack of square foot inventory, has forced FATVillage to watch tenant success stories move to bigger spaces elsewhere. Facing steadily rising values, and numerous opportunities/pressures to follow the typical narrative (handing over to market pegged development void of artist sustainability), the property owners have stayed the course ‘protecting’ the artistic mix for 17+ years. This is highly unusual on a national scale, especially amidst the greater displacement story of art communities worldwide. In future terms, this is a less speculative model of a district serving a creative cluster, and the gains afforded to the greater community. FATVillage is older than Wynwood Arts District, and Art Basel’s presence in Miami. It is factually more stable in respect to its homestead. In 2016 a new arts organization was welcomed, ArtsUP! An experimental gallery with an interdisciplinary concept founded by Neil Ramsay. Neil with a background in economics and finance, has been subsequently named Director of FATVillage Arts District Inc. The interdisciplinary fusion will see more concepts incubated on this campus of sorts, and spun-out from FATVillage. One being the already city-approved streetscape, which promises to be a work of art and technology in itself. FATVillage, an unpretentious curio of artistic-processes and creative developments is also about to embrace the culinary arts.
FATVillage incubates artists blending them with the professional business, design and technology talent on-site. This produces art not in the traditional sense, or not how we may be accustomed to seeing it. FATVillage has launched companies with its resident artists, and tenant-creatives in partnership. ART + LIGHT + SPACE, The Projects, FAR, and next in line (no pun intended) CUUE. ART + LIGHT + SPACE is soon to turn one of the city’s most prominent structures, into the city’s most prominent art work. The Projects at FATVillage, an 8,000 Sq,ft warehouse art space, directed and curated by a couple that met while enrolled in Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). Peter Symons and Leah Brown, push the boundaries of staid constructs consistently. Fine Art Resources (FAR) consults corporate clients on art acquisitions, and also maintains a more traditional white-cube gallery space, FAR Gallery. CUUE will be announced in early 2017
Soon the F.A.T in FATVillage will come from Food, Art & Technology. In answer to the demanding call from both the downtown population and restaurateurs interested in this 33301 location, with its 21-45 y/o creative demographic. The type attracted to an organic cultural emergence from an authentic history of industrial grit, and ‘making' occurring in FATVillage. FATVillage is relatively small only in geography, but this unsuspecting district has been noted, and is coming under further notice nationwide. It’s a differentiated experience when explored below its surface, and that is part of the FATVillage appeal. The Food & Cooking Channel Networks’ South Beach Food & Wine Festival, has selected FATVillage for its next South Florida concept, and so the story goes.
Category Urban Strategies
Industry Architecture and Real estate development
Location Fort Lauderdale, FL
Related to Future of Urban Living, Future of Work, Urban Development, Economy, Future of Design
Reviewer Wendy W Fok, Neil Ramsey
Real Estate Developers Doug McCraw, Lutz Hofbauer
Case Study FATVillage
DIGITALSTRUCTURES: DATA AND URBAN STRATEGIES OF THE CIVIC FUTURE
2020 | Digitalstructures: Data and Urban Strategies of the Civic Future
Digitalstructures: Data and Urban Strategies of the Civic Future explores contemporary issues surrounding of how Western and Eastern countries define the future of work and urban living. The research will explore what it will look like in the post-COVID-19 digital era, pertaining to data structures, urban strategies, and civic planning for the cities of our future. An in-depth exploration of graphical mapping and cartography, and how data interacts with various open innovation models in digital property and real property will be key. Developmental topics that explore broader topics hitting humanities and social sciences and engage with interdisciplinary and cross-cultural topics that question policy challenges facing “democracies” in the 21st century will be the focus.
The proposal will question and dive into what constitutes “democracies.” Western “democracies” may mean that the distribution of information may be different from the Eastern norm. What are the consequences of “democracy,” as we are in a shift of what these types of governance look like in the urban policies and planning of mega-cities?
Looking into larger topics of urban policy and planning, while exploring mapping and cartography as a visual-aid of data infographic and representation, I would like to work with researchers at the Kluge Center to engage in conversations about how planning Eastern cities with Western standards—such as a city like Hong Kong that is facing diplomatic upheavals which are affecting patterns of migration, data and information distribution, and policy challenges.
Being online now is different both geographically and politically. This project aims to examine acts of building out data and urban environments as a response to perpetually online modes of living. The Library of Congress has an abundance of resources, and the Geography and Map Division (G&M) has custody of “the largest and most comprehensive cartographic collection in the world.” Cities that have their own fiber optics networks, and the maps of the underwater internet cable system are just some of the many archives to explore.
The research for Digitalstructures: Data and Urban Strategies of the Civic Future engages further into the contemporary issues that surround 21st century cities, the citizens and governing bodies’ use of technology, and transforming data into visual infographics that could be explored in augmented reality and mixed-reality through a digital platform. These issues are an expanded version of what I completed at Harvard for my Doctoral dissertation in November 2017. The research for my Doctor of Design was made possible in-part by the generous support of the Digital Kluge Fellowship, the surrounding community, and its staff. As an inaugural Digital Kluge Fellow, I utilized access to the archives at the Law Library, and had a fruitful collaboration with the Copyright Office.
Category Urban Strategies
Industry Economy, Urban Policy, Humanities, Social Sciences, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, Architecture, Law
Location Western and Eastern democracies
Related to Future of Urban Living, Future of Work, Urban Development, Economy, Future of Design
Reviewer Prof Wendy W Fok
Case Study White paper
THE FUTURE OF THE AUTOMAT
2019 | The Future of the Automat
With the development of touch interfaces and manufacturing costs being reduced due to the accessibility of technology, the return of the automat storefront and vending system is queued to make a return.
Before the fast food industry, there was the automat. The original automat food service company in the United States titled Horn and Hardart was able to deliver food to over 800,000 individuals daily. The word “automat” comes from the Greek automatos, meaning “self-acting”.
However, the first Horn and Hardart automat restaurants were far from automatic. A large number of employees were required to fill the automat compartments as each customer removed their desired item–inevitably turning the concept of automat restaurants into a smoke and mirror show. However, there were a large number of benefits that came from automat style dining such as the consumer being able to see the product they were purchasing before buying–enabling quality assurance.
With the development of touch interfaces and manufacturing costs being reduced due to the accessibility of technology, the return of the automat storefront and vending system is queued to make a return. In the midst of the technological revolution and access to interactive interfaces and multimedia displays, the automat can do far more than being an automated delivery service.
Now, the automat delivery interface can display responsive imagery that informs the consumer about the product, and how it came to be through supply chain data.
Companies such as Cooler Screens are already implementing digital interfaces in Walgreens flagship stores across the United States. The next step would be to create a digital interface that not only responds to the consumer and their market preferences but provides a social impact that aids in keeping the modern consumer informed on the product they are buying.
Due to the automats ability to be entirely automated through the point of sale and delivery process, the possibilities of site-specific installations are endless. These automat vending locations can be set up in any scenario, whether it be in private storefronts displaying limited edition design objects or products or in public site activations, enabling passersby to become actively engaged. By utilizing site-specific activations the automat can be a tool for engaging the public and providing a tailored product ranging from luxury objects to handmade designs crediting their creators.
By applying a new strategy and design to the automat breakthrough can be achieved which enables new types of innovative projects that are capable of activating new spaces. In order to embrace the future of urban living and urban economies, the potential of designs needs to be pushed in the making process as well as the way new technology is applied. As the future of manufacturing and consumption changes, there needs to be a response to the way objects are presented and delivered to the modern consumer. Futuristic design objects need to be delivered in a futuristic way.
One may formulate that the automat is further removing workers from the job market, however by minimizing the need to be on site to deliver products to their consumers there will be a new opening in the ability to train and specialized workers in new fields–emphasizing product development, supply chain ethics, and respond to consumer needs rapidly.
Category Open Design
Industry Robotics, Retail
Location International
Related to Future of Urban Living, Future of Work, Urban Development, Economy, Future of Design, Retail
Reviewer Wendy W Fok, Logan Larkin
Case Study White paper, The Future of the Automat