UB Architecture Dean Deeply Embedded in Anchorage "Freeze"

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- This month, the city of Anchorage, Alaska, will celebrate life in the Arctic with "Freeze," a bold series of outdoor installations by artists, architects and designers committed to perpetuating the Northern spirit, along with a wide variety of other events.

The event, which will run through Feb. 6, will also celebrate the new Anchorage museum designed by world-renowned architect David Chipperfield.

On Jan. 8 and 9, the 20 installations built on the city's Delaney Park Strip will be presented by the designers and architects, led by Brian Carter, dean of the School of Architecture and Planning at the University at Buffalo, who has written a book about the projects being presented.

Among the installations are "Northern Sky Circle" by the Vancouver design studio Molo. It is an outdoor room, 84 feet in diameter, made from the snow and sky of the northern landscape. It is a place for contemplation, gathering and a heightened sensory experience of the winter sky.

Another installation, "Sound Mirror," is inspired by Northern states of change and fluctuations in weather, environment, light and atmosphere.

There are snowballs lit from within, a visual investigation of how molecules "decide" to jump from water to ice, and an ice flow extracted from Cook Inlet that was trucked to downtown Anchorage and mounted for close-up inspection. Another team produced a 30-foot-in-diameter frozen lake full of cars over which visitors can walk and skate.

Carter notes that a mere list of the installations doesn't describe the poetry and complexity of the social, environmental and artistic issues addressed by the design teams.

For example, a Belgian team has constructed a wooden catapult that allows people to "send ice to the North Pole." The public is invited to make a form or ice sculpture and permit the catapult to presumably fling it northward.

When this catapult is released, however, the ice does not actually fly into the air, but comes back through the catapult and into a fire-heated caldron where it melts and contributes to a collective pot of warm tea drunk by the public.

The internationally celebrated design practice CK-Architecture of Los Angeles and renowned installation and environmental artist Lita Albuquerque have established a black-ice table above ground level that attracts visitors to its edges by force of its content's continually changing play of color and reflection. The 85-foot-long by 45-inch-wide table is filled with black oil and water, which dissects the site and is positioned in the precise direction of the sun the exact moment of the 50-year anniversary of Alaska statehood.

Details on the installations can be found at http://freezeproject.org/alaska/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/freeze_map.pdf

"Freeze" also features a series of unusual and provocative film and video festivals, dance and theater performances, a wide range of exhibitions, conferences, demonstrations, lectures and science presentations.

Information can be found on the Freeze Web site, http://freezeproject.org/alaska/

The University at Buffalo is a premier research-intensive public university, a flagship institution in the State University of New York system and its largest and most comprehensive campus. UB's more than 28,000 students pursue their academic interests through more than 300 undergraduate, graduate and professional degree programs. Founded in 1846, the University at Buffalo is a member of the Association of American Universities.