A 1970’s Chevrolet step van will be meticulously converted into a professional-grade visual arts exhibition space. The exterior, refinished to a matte primer gray, will be non-descript save for white-wall tires and supergraphics on its side that identify it as Untitled. The interior will be outfitted with all the trappings of a contemporary art institution: hardwood floor, white walls and a miniature track-lighting system. An ambitious sculptural undertaking, the project also acts as a Beuysian “Social Sculpture” – its meaning is made just as surely through the creation of a space for dialogue as it is through the project’s physical form. Untitled will launch an exhibition program during the fall of 2012, transporting the work of San Diego/Tijuana artists onto the University of San Diego’s campus, while carrying USD students’ artwork out into the surrounding community.

The project finds inspiration across a menu of high and low art traditions that have fueled USD Senior Noe Olivas’ recent artwork: Mexican-American car club low-riders; rat-rod and custom car culture in Southern California; the avant-garde conceptual sculpture of contemporary artists like David Hammons and the street art movement of the last 25 years.

“From Spheres to Atmospheres” is the result of a two year research project by the University of San Diego Architecture Students under the direction of Daniel López-Pérez that aims to assemble a “Spherical Atlas” of thirty geodesic prototypes developed by R. Buckminster Fuller from 1945 to 1980. The goal is to assemble a number of drawings and models drawn and built by the students, alongside with original Fuller drawings and models, in order to highlight the material and spatial intricacy of these, and their invaluable potential as prototypes for contemporary design.

This research looks back as much as it looks forward. It explores the possibility of rediscovering these prototypes as generative “spherical” systems rather than closed “spheres”, open for deformation and transformation. This research both learns from the past and builds on the intelligence of these in order to shape a new future.

Originally born out of the collaboration between R Buckminster Fuller and university students in departments of architecture, art and engineering throughout the US, the design and development of these geodesic prototypes proposed a new pedagogical model where academic and professional research were synthesized into a single practice. Drawn and built by students, “From Spheres to Atmospheres” proposes a similar pedagogy that engages students across a number of fields and explores the potential of academic research transforming disciplinary boundaries.