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BOOX REVIEW |
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Wes Janz, PhD, RA, is a professor of architecture at Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana. Awarded the Outstanding Teacher Award in 2006 by the university he is also the founder of “one small project”, a collection of global and local initiatives that focus on the lives of needy people. He is married to Marcia Stone and lives in Indianapolis, Indiana.
He defines a “A leftover … as something that endures as residue or surplus. Synonyms include remainder (Rubbish, odd, waste) and excess (plentiful, bonus, lavishness). The leftover is a fertile category. Your garbage is recast as my gift, an unused space welcomes our event, and a person asking for spare change has potential.”
The immigrants who’ve just moved into a big city or residents of a shrinking one, are forced to self build their dwellings. They look for anything they can find and construct places to live and shelter themselves. “Leftover Rightunder highlights such selected projects from ten years of Wes Janz’s efforts to showcase these people’s work in the design and education communities of which he is a member.”
This is an effortless read, if there is any reading at all. Writing has been kept to a complete minimum so as to make room for only pictures. Wes Janz knew that if he had to engage and showcase readers in his vision, show them the beauty that lies in a shelter made out of cardboard and used bottles, what better way than to just use pictures. Yes, almost eighty percent of the book is covered in pictures, you could finish the book in a matter of a few minutes over a coffee.
The book has been divided into six sections to create a progressive visual flow of images and words: Seeing, Believing, Building, On the Move, Pallet Garage. The first section, seeing, simply shows you what you see everyday. The everyday construction rubble constitutes a pile of unused wood, an abandoned house or building, some stones, some brick, etc. These are things that have become so much a part of an everyday visual ignorance that we don’t see the possibilities of raw materials within them. The author gives examples of the amount of couches and mattresses landfilled everyday as an abundance of source material for creative inputs.
The book illustrates this with a picture of a couple using old bedsprings to create a lovely vertical garden. The book is filled with pages and pages of similar pictures and illustrations showcasing creativity, innovation, waste management and art. You will look at these pictures and question yourself that “they made this out of that?”.
In “On the move” the author describes about migration and relocation. How people on the move consider themselves scavengers, but are actually hunters looking at locations such as universities, where during end of term students leave behind loads of waste and discarded materials. The next section deals with pallets and wooden platforms, that are landfilled by the millions every year. The author then restarts his visual tour by giving us a look on how pallets are landfilled and the most creative and ingenious ways of re- using them. This book tries to visually breathe and awaken that creative spirit. One has to realize that one simply needs to see, believe and make it happen and it does.
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| Volume No. |
Honey Bee 24(4) 20, 2014 |
