pipe organ factory and a.p.o.b.a convention center

harvard graduate school of design : option studio
critic : mack scogin
spring 2018



The program for this project is the following : A Pipe Organ Factory and an Associated Pipe Organ Builders of America Convention Center. The site is : Marfa, TX. An antithetical program, further contradicted by its own site.

At first glance, the nature of pipe organ building relies on a collective effort. Yet, in a way, the collective effort it takes to build a pipe organ is contingent on the skill of each individual where each member of the pipe organ building collective has a high level of individual expertise because what is being produced is closer to art than product.

If the process of pipe organ building fosters the collective, how is the individual celebrated, when the individual is so indispensible?

I am interested in the opposing relationship that exists within the process of pipe organ building since both factory and convention center are for pipe organ builders. When paired with the pipe organ, both program types, the factory and convention center, can be reconsidered in their own right, where factory is to craft what convene is to disperse.

These newfound contradictory programs begin to reconcile the irreconcilable relationship found in the nature of the pipe organ building process.



This is a process heavy studio that went in this order : childhood memory video, site self-selected and analyzed, individual program assigned, object made according to program, object placed on site.

Video production in collaboration with Lucas Wynne.