–––––––––––– Black Rock City 2012 –––––––––––

Painting and Installation 2012  Fertility 2.0 ©Maddog and Ishka Lha  ishkanexus.com 

For the weeklong Burning Man festival, a temporary city is built in the Black Rock Desert in northwestern Nevada where every year more than     50 000 participants endure extremely harsh living conditions to create an artistic community unique in the world.

They settle on a clearly defined layout  organically improved over             two decades of  adaptation to the growth of its population and ever increasing regulations that govern a private event held on public land.

The Leave No Trace, Self-reliance and Decommodification principles condition the nature of this habitat and demand a new approach to urban planning and the viability of temporary dwellings.

To survive in style (or not) a scorching sun, destructive gusts of wind
and the omnipresent dust, Burners, forward-looking citizens, come up with solo and communal camps, the fruition of year-long preparations along with sheer improvisation, to create an ephemeral architecture that will vanish leaving deep memories and no trace.

I recorded these images after countless hours bicycling around                   Black Rock City to keep traces of this profound urban experiment.

These photos are the gift I received from this thriving, yet physically ephemeral community.

                                                                    

                                                                             Enjoy, sit back and welcome home again!

                                                                                                               Philippe Glade 2012

Camp or installation misnamed? contact me: brc(at)philippeglade.com (plz:no flame, all smile)

This is a SFW blog.

This blog is a Ginormous labor of love that I want to keep commercial-free by adhering to the Decommodification principle.
If you share the same view and still read real paper books, you can support my book illustrating hundreds of solutions built during 15 years in the desert from 1996 to 2010:

- 109 copies left: when it's gone, it's gone -
At the 100 mark there will be a $10 price increase for collector item :-)

Black Rock City, NV the ephemeral architecture of Burning Man

BROWSE IT

Super special thanks to Heather Gallagher (camera girl), Michael Vav, Harley K Dubois, Terril Neely.

Blog dedicated to Rod Garrett, the city designer/planner who for 16 years created and improved the original grid of the city. 

Previously: 2011  2010  2009  2008  2007 to 1996

2012 Table of contents

5 pages/51 posts  at the bottom of each column click older posts to access the next one

1 Cityscapes/Golden Rebars/Originals

2 Camps/Hexayurts/Camo/Tensegrity/Mini Houses

3 Domes/Monkey Huts/Fabric/Canopies/Teepees/

   Participants/Showers/Wood Frame/RV's

4 Tents/Parachutes/Ring/Mutant Cars/Art Installations

5 The Temple/Me and many photographers links

Click images to enlarge

Soundscapes for BRC and this blog: Eno KLF Tron Underworld Vangelis

All Photos/Texts©Philippe Glade 2012

What friendly blogs say about This is Black Rock City:

Weburbanist
Bettery magazine
Irregularshelter

1/Cityscapes

 GeoEye Satellite Image

The 2012 BRC Map

53 000 participants

One week

The Playa

Black Rock City 2012

Zonotopia and the two trees by Rob Bell and crew with the Man and Old Razorback Mountain.

2/Cityscapes-2

Extreme solutions

Pacific coexistence

The wind is pounding, the dust saturates the air, this doesn't stop the DJ of camp Caledonia to spin his grooves.
Built by Spincycle, this is a temporary homage to the Tjibaou Cultural Centre in Nouméa, New Caledonia by Renzo Piano.

Afternoon delight

Black Rock City has the highest ratio of bicycles per capita, and also Mutant Vehicules.

3/Cityscapes-At the Edge of the World

Camp Disco Sux

4/Golden Rebar-1

The Metal Pod Cabins

Every year a shelter out of the ordinary stands out on the Playa, treasure of ingenuity or groundbreaking design, Center Camp Café, the Hexayurt, the Van Brink Lerner dome, the Playadome, the Chiton, the Gherkin... 

Years of experience have helped refine structural and design glitches making them reliable and familiars sights in a very, most say extremely, disorienting environment.

A better understanding of the terrain in conjunction with a fluid urban layout allows new ideas, new directions to thrive, to break the mold. 

Tin Man, FIRST TIMER, smashed it, alone.

Master of his trade, metal, he created amid a busy work schedule, in one year with his foreman Steve, three Metal Cabin Pods with their companion, the Walking Pod.

The result is a radical design, although angular, that transcends the participative and innovative spirit making the fabric of Black Rock City and Burning Man.

Even with best laid plans, the Playa rules: too tired Tin Man couldn't set up the taller third pod and the pointy legs of his mutant vehicule dug into the soft ground, minor set backs. 

Can we expect a tiny village next year?

    

  Outstanding Golden Rebar 2012

Where are we?

Set up time: a day and a half, alone.
Hot air rises through the galvanized steel bottom pod, comfortable all times, to the top rusted carbon steel pod cooling off quickly with a vent panel.
Insulation inside each panel kept heat out.

Top pod is the bath with a stainless tube underneath the floor panel made of trap doors. At night the pod was used as bedroom.
A connected taller pod, the loft bedroom, couldn't made it this year but will in 2013.
Water run out the pod via a flexible hose into a grey water drum.

The Walking Pod

Inspiration: Theo Jansen's Standbeets a MUST see creation.

Top Speed: 0.2mph (Pershing county LEO hates him)
Carbon Steel Panels         1,800 lbs
2 Gear drives from commercial dishwashers/ solar and wind generator for the 800W battery.
3 months concept and building with his shop foreman, Steve.
Assembled in 2 days, alone.

Already got some friends.

5/Golden Rebar-2

Buried inside a big camp was this Gem.

I have no idea if this is a pure creation or a mass product shelter, this shelter looks one-of-a-kind.

Instant Golden Rebar.

Made of wood, the struts simply interlock with the hub connectors without nails or screws.

Simplicity and grace make a unique design. Magnificent!

(Please contact)

  

The parachute hangs by small hooks at the center of the connector hubs.

Last but not least, the evaporating system. Unique. Bravo!

6/Golden Rebar-3

WOW!

Golden rebar for camp Inventistan a tall centered tensegrity structure with a viewing platform

on top of free-standing masts (3).

Its creator Sean Rice sworn that it wasn't complex 

and was easy to setup.

Lasted the entire week.

I declined the invitation to climb on the platform.

Back.

A photographer's paradise.

7/Golden Rebars-4

2012 was the year of the Hexayurt, they were everywhere in Black Rock (1000?)

This double H13 from camp Oasis 47 gets a Golden Rebar for the clever design of the vestibule connecting two Hexas. We also greatly appreciate the growing trend of setting the logo side of the insulating panels inside, Burning Man is about Decommodification.

More Hexayurts entry 21

4 2x4 + 2 ropes, no nails, no drilling, tight knots, Frank Wilson deserves a Golden Rebar for his tensegrity-like structure that lasted the week.

Square shape before putting the shade cloth.

After, a contemporary Bedouin.

Kuddos and Golden Rebar for this tiny "Desert Shade Cabana"

an efficient and fast to setup shelter.

The PVC pipes were 6 feet long to fit the car of Sue V. who tested it in her Southern California High Desert farm with 70 mph wind.

8/Originals-1

The tallest erected camp on the Playa, Baalmart with its scaffolding shaft on vialis climaxed at 70 feet.

Next year they should add a geyser at the top to refine this metaphor in honor of the ancient god of fertility Baal.

Instead of a staircase they had the good idea to use ramps to climb the 10 story erection.

On a softer side, the whimsical inflatable tents of artists Mahani Baharum and Gaia Hannan.
Check out their creations I wish they could do an Art installation on the Playa next year.

Inside it's cosy.

Yummy.

9/Originals-2

B.R.A.V.O.

Located at 3 o'clock the Post Office/Dance hall.

The gracious Treehouse camp.

Designed and build by brothers Quill and Barley Hyde from Tonasket, WA this amazing blue dome, folding like an umbrella, setup/breakdown 1hr, $300 in materials, was base camp of the Acavallo Carousel, a hit on the Playa and at the Decompression.
Amazing artists.

Like an umbrella.

10/Originals-3

A new addition to the BRC skyline. At night you could see floating pyramids.

The creator of the above camp, an artist in his own right, gifted me with one of his sculpture.
(contact me).

Argyre Patras (see entry#40) decided this year to use the fabric of a weather balloon for shelter.

Inside.

11/Originals-4

Some Landmarks

The Chiton by D'Milo Hallerberg.

The Gherkin.

Inside the catenoid dome Gherkin.

In previous years it was the Sputnik.
Due to some structural changes it could be renamed the Rocket.

"Sir James" the home of real life blacksmith Michel Olson  and his wife Christy Horne storyteller.
The Gypsy Time Travelers: one-of-a-kind.

12/Originals-5

Made of fine EMT conduits covered with felt, this hyperbola shelter sustained the strongest wind without moving. 

Simple and fast to set up.

Detail.

Inside camp Conduit with custom made frame holding a pressurized room dust-free and cool.

You've reached the bottom of page 1, it's time to replenish

 your beverage with electrolytes. 

At the bottom right of this column click Older Posts to see more camps, Hexayurts and stuff.                         ↓

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