Forest Building
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As with the eight other SITE-designed Best Products showrooms, the design was a standard [[big-box store]] with an unusual visual twist that literally deconstructed the architectural form.{{cite news |last1=Kohlstedt |first1=Kurt |title=Site Specific: Postmodern Best Products Showrooms Deconstruct Consumerism |url=https://99percentinvisible.org/article/site-specific-postmodern-best-products-showrooms-deconstruct-consumerism/ |access-date=26 June 2024 |work=99 Percent Invisible |date=October 17, 1916}} At the Forest Building, SITE proposed building the entrance of the warehouse around existing trees on the site. According to curatorial text prepared for a [[Museum of Modern Art]] (MoMA) display of Forest Building designs, the building "reimagined the big-box store, manipulating setting, site, and façade through radical 'invasions of nature,' challenging visitors to [[strip mall]]s with unexpected architecture. Here, an ordinarily untamed element of nature transforms a banal architectural type through a tongue-in-cheek intervention, creating a new environment in the expanses of a suburban parking lot."{{cite web |title=Forest Building, Richmond, Virginia (Perspective) |url=https://www.moma.org/collection/works/706?classifications=any&date_begin=Pre-1850&date_end=2024&q=forest+building&utf8=%E2%9C%93&with_images=1 |publisher=Museum of Modern Art |access-date=26 June 2024 |location=578.1981}} |
As with the eight other SITE-designed Best Products showrooms, the design was a standard [[big-box store]] with an unusual visual twist that literally deconstructed the architectural form.{{cite news |last1=Kohlstedt |first1=Kurt |title=Site Specific: Postmodern Best Products Showrooms Deconstruct Consumerism |url=https://99percentinvisible.org/article/site-specific-postmodern-best-products-showrooms-deconstruct-consumerism/ |access-date=26 June 2024 |work=99 Percent Invisible |date=October 17, 1916}} At the Forest Building, SITE proposed building the entrance of the warehouse around existing trees on the site. According to curatorial text prepared for a [[Museum of Modern Art]] (MoMA) display of Forest Building designs, the building "reimagined the big-box store, manipulating setting, site, and façade through radical 'invasions of nature,' challenging visitors to [[strip mall]]s with unexpected architecture. Here, an ordinarily untamed element of nature transforms a banal architectural type through a tongue-in-cheek intervention, creating a new environment in the expanses of a suburban parking lot."{{cite web |title=Forest Building, Richmond, Virginia (Perspective) |url=https://www.moma.org/collection/works/706?classifications=any&date_begin=Pre-1850&date_end=2024&q=forest+building&utf8=%E2%9C%93&with_images=1 |publisher=Museum of Modern Art |access-date=26 June 2024 |location=578.1981}} |
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What would otherwise appear to be a typical big-box store brick exterior was designed as a screen in front of trees and ground cover that would separate the façade from the rest of the store.{{cite web |last1=Gallanti |title=A Cut, a Move, a Forest |url=https://www.harvarddesignmagazine.org/articles/a-cut-a-move-a-forest/ |website=Harvard Design Magazine |access-date=2 October 2024 |date=2018}} Shoppers entered the store by walking through the 35 foot wide gap full of trees and grasses across bridges,{{cite news |title=Between utopia and apocalypse: five projects by SITE |url=https://usmodernist.org/AR/AR-1984-03.pdf |access-date=26 June 2024 |work=Architectural Record |date=March 1984 |pages=134–145}} that induced a sense of surrender to nature in shoppers.{{cite journal |last1=Robey |first1=Jessica |title=Appetite for Destruction: Public Iconography and the Artificial Ruins of SITE, Inc. |journal=Invisible Culture |date=2003 |issue=6 |doi=10.47761/494a02f6.9d26dd26 |url=https://www.rochester.edu/in_visible_culture/Issue_6/IVC_iss6_Robey.pdf |access-date=26 June 2024}} The separation of the façade from the building is marked by irregular brickwork signifying ruin.{{cite journal |last1=Paterson |first1=Dominic |title=RESEARCH INTO THE BEST PRODUCTS ARCHIVES: A JOURNEY BY ARTIST SCOTT MYLES |journal=Virginia History & Culture Magazine |date=Winter–Spring 2020 |url=https://virginiahistory.org/learn/research-best-products-archives-journey-artist-scott-myles |access-date=26 June 2024}} and which was intended to evoke a building [[passive rewilding|reclaimed by nature]]. The sensation is enhanced by the use of rounded [[shotcrete|gunite]] lining the inside of the gap, creating a contrast with the smooth brick exterior and amplifying the sense of what SITE described as "unbuilding," according to ''[[Architectural Record]]''. |
What would otherwise appear to be a typical big-box store brick exterior was designed as a screen in front of trees and ground cover that would separate the façade from the rest of the store.{{cite web |last1=Gallanti |title=A Cut, a Move, a Forest |url=https://www.harvarddesignmagazine.org/articles/a-cut-a-move-a-forest/ |website=Harvard Design Magazine |access-date=2 October 2024 |date=2018}} Shoppers entered the store by walking through the 35 foot wide gap full of trees and grasses across bridges,{{cite news |title=Between utopia and apocalypse: five projects by SITE |url=https://usmodernist.org/AR/AR-1984-03.pdf |access-date=26 June 2024 |work=Architectural Record |date=March 1984 |pages=134–145}} that induced a sense of surrender to nature in shoppers.{{cite journal |last1=Robey |first1=Jessica |title=Appetite for Destruction: Public Iconography and the Artificial Ruins of SITE, Inc. |journal=Invisible Culture |date=2003 |issue=6 |doi=10.47761/494a02f6.9d26dd26 |url=https://www.rochester.edu/in_visible_culture/Issue_6/IVC_iss6_Robey.pdf |access-date=26 June 2024}} The separation of the façade from the building is marked by irregular [[brickwork]] signifying ruin.{{cite journal |last1=Paterson |first1=Dominic |title=RESEARCH INTO THE BEST PRODUCTS ARCHIVES: A JOURNEY BY ARTIST SCOTT MYLES |journal=Virginia History & Culture Magazine |date=Winter–Spring 2020 |url=https://virginiahistory.org/learn/research-best-products-archives-journey-artist-scott-myles |access-date=26 June 2024}} and which was intended to evoke a building [[passive rewilding|reclaimed by nature]]. The sensation is enhanced by the use of rounded [[shotcrete|gunite]] lining the inside of the gap, creating a contrast with the smooth brick exterior and amplifying the sense of what SITE described as "unbuilding," according to ''[[Architectural Record]]''. |
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==Reception== |
==Reception== |
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As the first building in which SITE fully realized the theme of ruin, according to architectural historian Jessica Robey, it became the progenitor for other SITE projects involving artificial ruins, excavations and deliberately unfinished projects. Wines himself has said the Forest Building was conceived as an expression of "nature's revenge."{{cite news |last1=Saunders |first1=Zach |title=INTERVIEW WITH JAMES WINES |url=https://www.arch2o.com/interview-with-james-wines-arch2o/ |access-date=26 June 2024 |work=Arch2O |date=2021}} |
As the first building in which SITE fully realized the theme of ruin, according to architectural historian Jessica Robey, it became the progenitor for other SITE projects involving [[artificial ruins]], excavations and deliberately unfinished projects. Wines himself has said the Forest Building was conceived as an expression of "nature's revenge."{{cite news |last1=Saunders |first1=Zach |title=INTERVIEW WITH JAMES WINES |url=https://www.arch2o.com/interview-with-james-wines-arch2o/ |access-date=26 June 2024 |work=Arch2O |date=2021}} |
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===Wines' reaction to renovations=== |
===Wines' reaction to renovations=== |
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