Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder

“Junkspace is a Bermuda Triangle of concepts…”

-Rem Koolhaas

Junkspace is a lot ‘things’. It is the accumulation of objects, distractions, commodities, you name it. It can seemingly be any accumulation of the undesirable. In all its complexity though, it doesn’t ever appear to be just space.

This makes me remember the Mayo Campus in Rochester, MN. The clinics themselves are intimidatingly efficient. In the immediate blocks, which connect the facility together you will find a deeply congested grid, riding bumper to bumper, desperately trying to find some metered junkspace. Day after day, you can watch this from any of the many floors that tower over the blocks. This is the diagnosis for each calendar year for store owner’s buried in commuter junk, only to be relieved of these symptoms each Thursday evening for the Spring Season.

On these Thursday nights, the slate is cleared. The bare surface of the streets, sidewalks, grassy medians and plazas are visible for only a few hours as the transition begins. The congested streets of Rochester become open and welcoming to the public and in-patients alike. Pop-up markets and concert stages barricade traffic from entering the neighborhood. The intention is that the campus becomes part of the healing process. An extension of your room closed off from the big city as big brother is always looming over your head. Never able to escape the view of the towering clinic.

There is a subjectivity to the notion of ‘junkspace’ it can dramatically change from user to user, and typology to typology. That is the fascinating part of space and how we categorize it. As designers it is important for us to remove ourselves from the drawing board and simultaneously put ourselves in the space as it is drawn, not necessarily intended.