The Making Center
Location:
2 West 13th Street, 2nd Floor
Walk up the back stairs, first door on the right, the whole floor is the making center.
Images of the site:
A description of the site:
This space completely shocked me, i was in awe when i walked in. It is a very small door, and you walk in and the space takes up the whole floor. Very clean wooden floors, with black diagonal lines going through it. There are wooden shelves everywhere for people to be able to put their projects on it. There are are many tables everywhere, spot lights and manikins, it is purely a work space with so much life, so much energy. There are so many people taking over the tables and they are very hard at work. There are 3D making machines, and areas for loud mechanics as well as drilling noises and sewing machines. It is very interesting to see the different types of people in the space, and the people communicating together, weather they have headphones on, or merely laughing with others about their projects.
Why I selected this site:
I chose this site because i loved the atmosphere, it was so lively, everyone was so social and working together and helping each other. There are many different kinds of people taking over the space which i thought was very interesting. You can tell what field of study they are interested in by the way they are communicating with each other, and by the materiality they are using. It was all hands on work, and the area is so spacious. I love that when you walk through the door you expect a hallway and many different rooms, but this was just one big room taking the entire space. Not only was there a work space but you turn the corner and there is a gallery space of peoples works, its just pure inspiration, pure motivation.
The natural sounds of the space is rather reverberant, as people are very loud and like to socialize in the space. There is also a lot of machinery vibrating in the backgrounds of the space so you can barely hear your own thoughts. I feel some of these sounds should be diminished in some way.
The site has a very good circulation, it is created to bring people to be able to work on their projects and have a lot of table space for building if needed. However the way it is set up people can go from one corner of the space to the other without interfering with anyone else’s work. There are a lot of people working however you don’t feel the traffic, or sense the crowd because it is so spacious and everyone has their own space, so the organization is a very big advantage.
There is a lot of life and energy and i really enjoyed that aspect of the space. It is so interesting that depending on where you stand in the space you will receive a different soundscape. One of the corners have loud drilling sounds, and that is the only thing you can hear. Then you walk to the center where there are 3D machines working, and there is a constant sound of vibrations, and the clinks of mechanical objects working together. However there is one specific corner which is blankness, where the sound of the machinery doesn’t even reach the space and there are only voices and the sounds of scribbles on a paper. I really enjoyed walking around that space and experiencing different soundscapes, and listening to the transformation from drilling to mechanical clinks, to the echoes of peoples voices.
The space is so good for bringing in different types of people, because they all go for the intention to work and get their projects done, however with these kinds of hands on work, people tend to socialize, and ask others for their opinions on their works. However some other very interesting aspects is when you see the people sitting together on one table however all of them have their own earphones in and isolating themselves from each other, as if they are together however they aren’t. It is a very large space that can hold many people however no matter how many people are there it always feels spacious, there are no tight spots in the space.
What really caught my attention when I was standing in the space was that I could barely hear my own thoughts from all the background noise. I realized that there are different pitches coming from all angles. Then something amazing happened, I received a phone call and realized that I could not hear anything on the other end, because even though you don’t realize how loud it actually is, when you are talking on the phone, all sound waves are actually being disrupted by that background soundscape. So an installation idea came to mind, when I hang a box, or an interesting geometry shape from the ceiling big enough to fit a persons head and shoulders, and fill the inside of the shape with a sound absorbent material, such as felt, or cork, or even both for aesthetics and extra sound absorption, and the person who receives that phone call will be able to go stand under the installation and have whatever private conversation they want, without being disrupted by the sounds of the machines, or even have anyone over hear their conversation, they will be in their own private spot, they will be standing in their space of satisfaction.
