Elijah Huge - Art & Art History Department

Assistant Professor of Art

email:	ehuge@wesleyan.edu
mailing address:	Art and Art History Department
courses taught:
areas of expertise:	Intertidal, Overlace, and Parkslope represent a collection of projects which share in their development the testing and exploration of a common design approach. In each case, the work produced is directly responsive and thoroughly crafted to a specific site. The design of each project began with extensive site-based research of local conditions, focusing not only on what is existing and immediately visible, but also on the history of ideas, changes, forces, and patterns of use upon which the sites themselves are constructed. Through this research, possibilities emerged for developing the ideas that followed, whether in the tidal fluctuation that became the focus of Intertidal, the mythology of Venetian lace for Overlace, or elements of the English picturesque tradition for Parkslope. While architectural conventions are evident in the methods of representation, the projects themselves propose that building involves the environment as a whole, to be understood as a network of interrelated organic and synthetic conditions which are not particularly well-served by the historically contrived distinctions between constructed architecture and natural landscape. In the Intertidal project, for example, nature is not cast as a pure condition into which one escapes. Instead, the park is treated as a site to accentuate the experience and perception of a nature whose patterns and activities are omnipresent. Water is the defining characteristic - it is a perpetually shifting datum and plays an operative, performative and ecological role in a fluid landscape with indeterminate boundaries. Here, both the romanticized notion of the pastoral and the primacy of space are abandoned in favor of a dynamic park that accentuates the patterns and processes of the tidal cycle. The formation and dissolution of the islands in this recurrent ebb and flow of land and water produce a spectacle of an otherwise mundane or daily occurrence.
research interests:	Elijah Huge is a practicing architect whose design and research focus on engaging the intersections among urbanism, architecture, and landscape through site-specific projects. His design work has been exhibited in New York and New Haven and has won awards in international design competitions for the New York High Line, Architecture for Humanity, and the Bourne Bridge\|Park in Massachussetts. His current research includes "Stationed Overseas: Global Systems, Local Lands," a study of planning and conversion initiatives for former U.S. Military lands and bases in Panama and Puerto Rico. Prior to joining the Arts Faculty at Wesleyan, Mr. Huge was a senior designer with Pelli Clarke Pelli architects in New Haven. A graduate of the Yale School of Architecture, Mr. Huge is the editor of Perspecta 35: Building Codes, published by MIT Press, and a recent recipient of the Architectural League of New York's Deborah Norden Fund Award and the American Institute of Architect's LeBrun Fello!
office hours:	Fall 09 Sabbatical