Design Existing Only in San Francisco
Only in San Francisco would a filmmaker bring together a leading mid-career architect, an ex-hippie junk collector and the city’s building code inspector to complete a month-long project creating a beautiful, architecturally sound home made entirely of scrap from the salvage yards. Only in San Francisco would that building stand on the lawn in front of City Hall as a monument to the abilities of a community committed to exploring alternative design methods in unconventional settings. And only in San Francisco would such innovative architecture find so much support that a year later the film documenting the project would be screening as part of a month-long tribute to architecture in the city.
“ScrapHouse” was the pet project of Rachel Weidinger, a filmmaker dedicated to doing work which contributes to the world around her. She had the idea to film the process of a design team coming together with a construction team to complete the creation of an environment-conscious building constructed entirely of junk. There was a time when she was certain that the project was not going to come to fruition. There was no funding, there was no organizational plan, and there was no concrete group of people to complete the project.
Then, in a burst of inspiration, an idea came to Rachel and the people with whom she’d begun discussing the project. Why not create a challenge to complete the project in time for World Environment Day 2005? The date was only four weeks away, and the film is a testament to the ability of creative individuals coming together in a group project committed to a goal larger than the group itself. With such limited time and using only resources found in salvage in the Bay area, the group had to be extremely flexible in their architectural designs and open to trying new methods of construction.
Plans for the two-story residential home changed frequently as new materials were located. For example, the salvage team found a number of slightly misshapen street signs which were thrown out by the city. Those street signs became the shingles which were used to create siding for the home. Similarly, with no shortage of phone books available in dumpsters everywhere, the design team was able to use the books as insulation for the home, insulation which proved to be more environmentally friendly and more economical than standard fiberglass insulation.
The project was not easy to complete. It required volunteers ranging from contractors to salvagers. It required cooperation and hard work and a commitment to completing the project in an unbelievably short amount of time. And it took ingenuity. When the right materials for a design idea could not be located in salvage yards, new designs had to be created around what was available. In the end, a house which should have taken six months to complete was erected in less than a month, meeting all of the required building code standards for withstanding the high winds and threats of earthquakes in the Bay Area.
What the project taught the people who were involved in it is that if you invite others to join you in a creative attempt at designing new ways of seeing the world around us, they will be more than happy to participate. The generations of people working in the design fields today are made up of individuals who are interested in innovative design, project collaboration and pushing the edges of their own creative boundaries. Weidenger’s film, which aired originally on the National Geographic Channel, celebrates the energy behind such innovative design.
The film does not gloss over the difficulties of the project. It depicts the arguments which participants engaged in as a result of the time pressures and it discusses the difficulties of working with salvaged materials. It educates the viewer about different approaches to solving design problems in such a way that a layperson can understand the process behind the architectural design. It offers multiple perspectives to the validity of the project. But in the end, it is a work which is about inspiration in a city built upon the concept.
Written by d/visible contributor Kathryn Vercillo.
