Most architects don’t grow up in studios surrounded by artists who question the very meaning of the built environment, but Suzan Wines did. Now an adjunct associate professor at the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture at The City College of New York, Wines blends decades of creative influence with a critical eye toward how architecture can more relevantly respond to its context. Her recently awarded work invites a new generation to rethink what design is and what it could be.
Suzan Wines. Photo Source: CCNY
The project, “What Else Could It Mean? Writings and Drawings with James Wines,” is a book and video series developed in collaboration with Phillip Denny and her father, James Wines, the renowned American artist and founder of the environmental arts group SITE.
The book comprises fifty years of drawings and writings James Wines created as part of his work with SITE. Topics include art, design, environment, and education. These texts and sketches are emblematic of the social, environmental, and aesthetic ideas behind SITE’s radical form of design.
“It’s not a monograph, but a living document of SITE’s uniquely collaborative practice, highlighting the role of writing and hand drawing in the creative process,” Wines said.
Her journey to architecture was shaped by an upbringing surrounded by artists. But as an art student herself, she realized that her true calling is architecture. After founding her own practice, I-Beam Design, she was invited back to the Cooper Union School of Architecture as an adjunct professor and has continued to practice and teach ever since.
Wines, who also serves as SITE’s executive director, sees architecture as a social art that must respond to and communicate with its context.
“I’m much more interested in place-making and space-making than form-making,” she said. “Architecture is for people. Nothing else on the planet wants to have anything to do with it. We have an enormous responsibility to ensure that the places we build communicate clearly and respond to the needs of users.”
This publication is the culmination of a comprehensive archiving process directed by Wines and features drawings and texts that are emblematic of SITE’s most consequential work. The book includes past and current essays, lectures and drawings by James Wines with contributions from notable artists, architects, curators and writers that pay tribute to SITE’s influence while speculating on the future impact of integrative thinking and design on the public realm.
The book’s publication will be accompanied by a series of short videos focused on relevant topics, such as ‘Environmental Thinking’, ‘Humor in Architecture, ‘A.I. and the Creative Process’ and “What Else Could It Mean?’ as a means to probe aesthetic and conceptual questions about the future of architecture and place making in a world of reduced expectations and artificially manipulated imagery.
“My father, James Wines, has never used a computer to draw,” Wines said. “We wanted to share the value of mind to hand thinking, spatial imagination and the joys that hand drawing’s immediate response can provide, with younger generations of creatives. Putting pen to paper is the primal act of thought that everyone can learn from”.
This project consolidates both accumulated knowledge and future speculation, demonstrating how innovative solutions can enhance quality of life in the built environment.
Sofia is a graduate student at CUNY Brooklyn College, where she’s pursuing her M.S. in Media Studies. In addition to writing for The RICC, she’s a writer for the features section of Brooklyn College’s student-run newspaper, The Vanguard. She is also a dedicated writer for the Brooklyn News Service.