About
‘Tap City’ is a design competition that re-thinks the relationship between city dwellers and their infrastructure. It’s increasingly difficult for urbanites to think about the origin of their water. And that’s the point of infrastructure. After all, they are under-structures or sub-structures; they’re either below ground, or far removed from our quotidian activities. The faucets you find in your home are perhaps the handiest reminders of our water system, but we’re more interested in public connections to water. The drinking fountain is perhaps the most widely recognized of these. The Duncan Dunbar Memorial Fountain, at the corner of West Fourth St. and Thompson St. at the Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village, is the topic of the first Tap City.
History
At the corner of West Fourth St. and Thompson St. in Greenwich Village, on the northeast side of the McKim, Mead and White-designed Judson Memorial Church, is the Duncan Dunbar Memorial Fountain. It is passed by students, professors, children, park staff, tourists, artists, homeless people, construction workers, churchgoers, musicians, and street performers, so at times it feels like a microcosm of New York’s diverse interests. It was once a rejuvenating stopover for the Italian immigrant community in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. It is now another historical monument—dry—and another place to speed by.
Transparency
Transparency is a lost art. This would have been a tough fight were it not for a generous grant awarded to us by the 2011 Berkeley Undergraduate Prize for Architectural Design Excellence, and we've decided to publish our budget and operating fees, made available through Daytum. Call us open-source, unorthodox, or exposed--whatever you'd like. This is a way for us to simultaneously inform like-minded individuals and groups how and at what cost a competition on this scale gets done, and present free services (ideas, really) to the New York community and beyond.
By no means does the Duncan Dunbar Memorial Fountain deserve all of our love for drinking fountains, and we hope this competition model can be replicated in villages, towns and cities anywhere and everywhere. We sometimes sit at our computers, imagining a Tap City in places like Accra or Detroit; envisioning, considering and mulling over the possibility of calling attention to their own fountains in the most incredibly and culturally in tune of ways. Put simply: there's no copyright here, and we'd like to swerve Tap City toward inclusion and away from knowledge expertise.
Jury Members
Jean Phifer
Jean Phifer is an adjunct associate professor of Environmental Design at New York University, a fellow of the American Institute of Architects and a LEED accredited professional. She served as architect member and President of the Art Commission of the City of New York, now the Public Design Commission, from 1998-2003. She is the author of Public Art New York.
Maya Alexander
Maya Alexander was born and raised in New Orleans, LA. She attended Louisiana State University and received a BA in Interior Design. After leaving Baton Rouge she moved to Providence, RI to work at a local architecture firm. A short, two-year detour brought her back to New Orleans until she finally found herself in New York City. She currently works at Maya Lin Studio and spends her spare time exploring this endless and phenomenal city.
Louise Harpman
Louise Harpman is a principal in the architecture and design firm Specht Harpman, and maintains a commitment to teaching as well as practice. Specht Harpman was founded in 1995 by partners Scott Specht and Louise Harpman, who began working together while classmates at the Yale School of Architecture. A small company with rigorous standards for modern design, the firm's award-winning work includes commercial, institutional and residential projects, as well as custom furniture. Specht Harpman was recognized in Wallpaper* magazine's Architects' Directory as one of the "top 50 up and coming architectural practices from around the world." The firm has received Honor Awards from the American Institute of Architects in New York and Texas. Specht Harpman has been honored through the "Emerging Voices" series of the Architectural League of New York, named"Tastemakers" by House and Garden magazine, and included as one of New York City's "Top 100" architects by New York Magazine. The firm's off-the-grid modular house, zeroHouse has won a number of design awards and has been published in over 40 international books and magazines.
Scott Francisco
Scott Francisco is a designer, consultant and practicing cultural theorist in New York City. He has written and taught extensively on design, innovation and culture and worked for several large architecture firms in New York City. He holds a Masters of Science in Architecture Studies from M.I.T., a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Toronto and currently teaches design research methods at Parsons the New School for Design. He is the Director and Founder of Pilot Projects.
Irene Tichenor
Irene Tichenor holds a PhD in American History from Columbia University. She has written and lectured on numerous aspects of the history of printing in America. Her 2005 book, No Art Without Craft (Boston: Godine), traced the life and work of New York City printer Theodore Low De Vinne, the most prominent and influential figure in the trade at the turn of the twentieth century, and whose printing plant is a city, state, and federal landmark at the corner of Lafayette and Fourth Streets in Manhattan. She has been an active participant at Judson Memorial Church since 1969, where she is currently on the Board of Trustees.