Mike Wolanin | The Republic C4 Architectural Design and Drafting teacher Darin Johnson talks with some of his students as they setup their Exhibit Columbus installation named Machi off Washington Street in Columbus, Ind., Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2023.
After about a year of work, members of the Exhibit Columbus high school team are seeing their project come to life in downtown Columbus.
The team began installing their piece, “Machi,” in front of the Cummins, Inc parking garage on Tuesday. Darin Johnson, C4 architecture and construction instructor, said that they hoped to be done by the end of the week.
Students began work on the concept in September of 2022, he said.
“In Japanese, 街 (machi) signifies a busy downtown area or main street, so our installation is a perfect fit with its location on Washington Street. Whether you just got off of work or are taking a scenic stroll downtown, Machi is a space for all. Given the curatorial theme, Machi flips it to Design by Public. Constructed of over 1,000 linear feet of steel tubing, Machi measures 64 feet in width and 53 feet deep. A large group space is defined within its overall boundaries while several small, intimate spaces are created around its perimeter.”
The installation will include a multi-level canopy, as well as movable pieces that allow people to customize their own gathering spaces.
“We wanted it to be like a gathering place for everyone,” said Columbus North junior Ashley Perez. “…We wanted it to be open-ended for everyone so they could come and create their own spaces.”
“Last year, (Johnson) assigned us each some sort of event that we wanted to plan there,” Columbus East senior Judah Nickoll added. “So I’m excited to not only have the space there but also have certain scheduled gatherings or certain events that we’re going to do there that are going to bring attention and bring people together.”
Some of the activities that are planned at the space include dog walks, yoga, a carnival and a Nomad Arts festival, C4 architecture students said.
Of course, “Machi” was not without its difficulties.
In Johnson’s opinion, the main challenge of this year’s project was its size.
“The scope was huge,” he said. “We have a much smaller budget than the other exhibitors. And so the combination of our budget and the scope of the project made it rather difficult, but we accomplished it.”
The exhibit’s size also presents challenges when it comes to installation, Nickoll said.
“We had to figure out the logistics of welding it in certain pieces and then getting it there and welding it all together while it was on-site,” he said.
Brainstorming the concept was also difficult, he added, as they “basically had to create something out of nothing,” and it was hard to get people to open up and share their ideas.
Additionally, it was challenging to get people to come into work during the summer, as everyone was busy, and the size of the project meant that they needed a lot of workers to finish on time, Perez said.
“Something this big takes a lot of people to get involved,” said East senior Brooke Leslie.
North senior Eddy Lin added that the project’s budget and deadlines were another challenge.
Nickoll said that being a part of “Machi” has shown him a lot about the management and communication aspects of this kind of project.
“I think it’s a great application project where they’re applying skills they learned in class,” said Johnson. “It’s the closest thing to a real-world project that we could probably give them in the classroom, because it has an actual budget. It has a hard deadline.”
