Kaleidoscopic No. 6: Cyrus Peñarroyo
On design as a set of entanglements across social and spatial scales
Cyrus Peñarroyo is a Filipino-American designer and educator whose work examines the urbanity of the Internet – how networked technologies shape urbanization and how media spheres influence built environments. He is an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning where he was the William Muschenheim Fellow in 2015. He is a partner in the Ann Arbor-based design practice EXTENTS, with McLain Clutter. Peñarroyo was awarded the Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers in 2019, ACSA Faculty Design Awards in 2019 and 2020, and other honors.
Leonardo Bravo:
This is Leonardo from Berlin talking to Cyrus Peñarroyo in Michigan. Is it Detroit, Michigan, or…
Cyrus Peñarroyo:
Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Leonardo Bravo:
Again, thank you for responding to my inquiry about your practice. This is a good moment to talk about and get to know a little bit more about EXTENTS and the overall nature of your work. We could start by getting your perspective and framing about your practice, because I love the description that EXTENTS works as a design collaborative operating across scales.
Cyrus Peñarroyo:
Thanks again for inviting me to have this conversation. I started EXTENTS with a colleague of mine, McLain Clutter, back in 2017, in part, because we share an interest in the interrelations between media environments and built environments. When I arrived at Taubman College as a teaching fellow back in 2015, I was developing creative work that explored some of architecture’s entanglements with digital culture. Soon after, McLain and I received funding to pursue making-based research on the materiality of images and, in the process, discovered that we really liked working together. So, we took on other small projects and eventually decided to start our practice.
As a design collaborative, our decision to work across scales and disciplinary silos fosters a certain kind of agility that we think seems important for makers and designers today. I believe that we need to be nimble in order to confront the complex realities of the world that we live in. McLain and I also like being consistently out-of-category—even though we're trained as architects, we like to think about cities (like urban designers) and objects (like industrial designers) because our physical surroundings are defined by the relationships that exist between all of those things.
Leonardo Bravo:
I started a project a while back in Los Angeles, Big City Forum, which began as a conversation series focused on design issues then became a set of arts and design labs taking place in different neighborhoods in Los Angeles. I come from a fine arts background, a painting background, but I've always been drawn to how design and architecture can interact and entangle with the built environment, but not just in a physical and material way, but at an emotional scale, as a set of textures that are about lived experience. So I'm interested in the way you described this entanglement with digital culture, but also how architecture and design can respond to the emotional needs of folks, especially folks that live in marginalized, underserved communities. I don't know if that's a perspective that’s embedded in your work, but I'm sure you guys have thought about this as well.
Cyrus Peñarroyo:
Oh, definitely. Yeah, I think that you can't separate the social from the spatial—they’re always influencing and shaping one another. I think the physical world in which we live is made up of a lot of stuff, including built spaces, but also devices, technologies, objects…and, together, they inform our sense of self and how we perceive what it means to belong or be othered.
Leonardo Bravo:
So tell me a little bit, before we talk about some of the specific projects, how did you come up into architecture and how did that develop into a passion? Was that from, as a kid, like you wanted to build stuff or…?
Cyrus Peñarroyo:
Aside from a childhood enthusiasm for drawing, I became interested in architecture through my involvement in my high school’s theatre program. I actually considered going into the performing arts—specifically acting—instead of studying architecture in college. The more time I spent on stage, I became fascinated by the technical aspects of theatrical production––like lighting, props, and audio engineering––and the ways that collectively authored and physically constructed scenographies could promote storytelling. I helped out with the construction of sets and came to view the theater as an atmosphere where possible worlds could be produced. So yeah, my interest in architecture really started there.
Going into college at the University of Illinois at Chicago, I even took classes in the theatre department during my first year—I thought that I could minor in theater, or apply concepts from those courses to my studio work. Eventually, I realized that I really liked studying architecture and wanted to focus my efforts on that (also, it was logistically difficult to pursue both degrees). But yeah, I think that this initial interest in performance still influences the way that I work today.
Leonardo Bravo:
Right. I was gonna say, I could see there's definitely this thinking of the staging of a set. I mean, there's the contours of that, that framing in the work a bit.
Cyrus Peñarroyo:
Definitely. I think “staging” is a really important word, at least in relation to how I work. Staging involves thinking about materiality, activity, and temporality, all of which are concerns of architecture.
Leonardo Bravo:
So let's talk about the project of EXTENTS that I saw in LA. I think this was back in, was it 2019 maybe? Lossy/Lossless at Materials & Applications. Can you share the thinking behind it, how you were invited to participate, and how you came up with the design?
Cyrus Peñarroyo:
In 2018, M&A requested proposals for their Staging Construction design competition, for which McLain and I submitted an entry. We weren’t selected, but Jia Yi Gu (Executive Director, at the time) contacted us a few months later because M&A acquired a new storefront space off Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park and she wanted to find a way for us to collaborate. Jia informed us of her ambitions and goals for the storefront, and we started to come up with some ideas.
In teaching and practice, we’re often thinking about cities and how to engage different contexts. We were curious about the storefront’s relationship to the surrounding neighborhood and the historic role of arts institutions in rapidly changing neighborhoods like Echo Park. Since we’re based in Michigan and couldn’t afford to go out there initially, we began by looking on Google Street View to see how Sunset Boulevard was rendering visible the changes that we were hearing about from anecdotes and news reports. We took note of buildings that were under construction and the appearance or disappearance of sidewalk elements like disused pay phones or sandwich boards for new coffee shops, as well as bike lanes…anything showing that there was a different kind of person residing in the neighborhood…
Leonardo Bravo:
Yep. Amenities…
Cyrus Peñarroyo:
Amenities, exactly. And so, we gathered images of these urban artifacts and brought them together inside the storefront in a way that heightens your awareness of the changes happening around the site.
Leonardo Bravo:
And then in terms of the installation, how was that sort of tied into understanding the conditions or maybe responding to that?
Cyrus Peñarroyo:
So, for the installation, we created a tableau of digitally rendered urban artifacts that we believed represented changes unique to the neighborhood. We printed the tableau on a reflective material and covered the walls of the storefront’s interior with this composite image. We thought this material was cool because it produced hazy reflections, so the resultant print featured high-resolution digital objects with the vague appearance of the existing context. Then, on top of that, we had crisp reflections on the storefront glass. So, as you experienced the inside and outside of the space, you got to inhabit a dynamic, ever-changing image of the neighborhood.
We also installed a flooring system commonly used in data centers and rearranged its parts into a set of stacked platforms. So, in relation to the digitally rendered urban objects, this is another artifact of the digital world that we repurposed to function as seating, to make the space more occupiable, and to accommodate different kinds of activities or gatherings. To make these platforms more comfortable, we layered foam padding on top that we CNC-milled in Ann Arbor and brought out there. What we liked about these physical elements—the foam padding, the flooring system—was the object-quality of their parts and how they prompted comparative relationships between objects on the wall, floor, and in the city. So, we designed the space to help people recognize these kinds of multi-scalar relationships.
Leonardo Bravo:
Yeah. And that fluctuation, I love this image—it’s almost iconic—of Jia reclining on this seating arrangement.
Cyrus Peñarroyo:
We use that image everywhere, and I think she begrudgingly is like, “Okay, fine…”
Leonardo Bravo:
And we're gonna have to put it up here!
Leonardo Bravo:
How did the title accentuate or amplify the meaning?
Cyrus Peñarroyo:
“Lossy” and “Lossless” are terms that are common to digital imaging. They have to do with image quality and data, information that you’re willing to let go of as you compress a file. While we saw this as a nod to the digital aspects of the project, we were also interested in the term “loss,” what it means to be “loss-less” (or without loss)…what it means to lose the character of a place, or if it’s possible to not lose it. Like, are there elements that are resistant to disappearance? So yeah, the storefront and the images on its walls are meant to make you aware of urban objects and elements that are in states of appearance and disappearance.
Leonardo Bravo:
What I found fascinating is that, it was sort of a meta critique because it's working within an environment, an entity that in some way or the other is part of that displacement or that fluidity that are central to those urban shifts. Those changes. But there is also an entanglement there that is really interesting to think about. Were there conversations about the positionality of the institution within this neighborhood?
Cyrus Peñarroyo:
Definitely. When we were talking to Jia early on, this institutional critique was a big part of the project. For example, it’s interesting that the storefront space is on the ground floor of a fairly new residential building in the neighborhood, a building designed by an architect that also sits on the board of M&A. So, we could see the relationship between the site and the organization, and I know Jia recognized the complexities of that. And I think what's actually really great about the storefront now, especially during the pandemic, was that it functioned less like an exhibition space and more like a community resource. I think it was called “Heat Aid.” But yeah, they used the space to gather water bottles and other supplies that they could then distribute to people in need.
Leonardo Bravo:
Yeah. M&A became a vital, almost like service center. As a direct service community center.
Cyrus Peñarroyo:
Yeah. I'm really glad that they shifted the storefront’s role in the neighborhood, or made more apparent how it could function.
Leonardo Bravo:
And it points to the way in which many organizations need to really think about their roles and be nimble like that. Especially given the urgency of the multiple crises we are confronting, to have that nimbleness and to say we're not turning on a dime, but we're actually just bringing out a different facet of what we can be.
Leonardo Bravo:
Let's keep digging a little bit about this understanding of the urban environment and shift to the work you've been doing with the university around Detroit, the Acts of Urbanism festival and the Engaging Detroit workshops. What's the context? What's the contour of those projects?
Cyrus Peñarroyo:
Well, I'll start by saying that much of the work I’ve been doing in Detroit is ongoing. I actually started to study Detroit’s digital ecosystem around the same time as Lossy/Lossless. In 2019, I learned that Detroit was one of the least connected cities in the United States with respect to internet access, and I became interested in how this uneven internet service provision mapped onto patterns of urbanization. I initially interviewed high school students to understand how they use the Internet and the kinds of challenges that they run up against when it comes to socializing or schoolwork. I, then, began to speculate on what cities like Detroit could look like if we, collectively, prioritized access to the Internet and if communities had more control over the construction of this infrastructure.
That speculative design project led to conversations with Joshua Edmonds, the City of Detroit Director of Digital Inclusion. He has served as an advisor on the latest version of this research and connected us with David Underwood, who leads a faith-based nonprofit in Detroit. In our conversations with David, he expressed a desire to develop a vacant site near his church that’s adjacent to two abandoned schools. For the past two years, we've been studying the feasibility for converting these abandoned schools into housing and a community technology center that could provide access to digital infrastructure and other resources.
Arriving at this site and developing spatial strategies has been a complicated, almost non-linear process. For example, going into the project, we were interested in disused institutional buildings but didn’t decide to focus on schools until Joshua suggested that they could be reimagined as a community resource because of their central location within neighborhoods and because they often sit atop underused fiber-optic infrastructure. It was then that he connected us with David and the scope of the project began to grow and change based on conversations with members of his community.
Leonardo Bravo:
It points to the links around structural change as ultimately these are policy issues. It's basically how do we impact the lives of folks in communities that historically have lacked access? It requires a lot of public and private partnership building and understanding how these things are linked and understanding, what is the best and most direct way of servicing communities at our sites that maybe we need to rethink in more imaginative, communal ways.
Cyrus Peñarroyo:
Definitely.
Leonardo Bravo:
And talk about entanglements, it requires a whole lot of finessing, cultivation, and political savvy, because that kind of change at an institutional or or public entity level it takes time.
Cyrus Peñarroyo:
Definitely. It takes a lot of time. And what’s been especially challenging about this project is that we started speaking with David and members of his community in February 2020…
Leonardo Bravo:
Wow. Right before…
Cyrus Peñarroyo:
That! The pandemic, yep. So, we found ourselves in this paradoxical position, where we were attempting to have online community engagement sessions for a project about digital access in a neighborhood that we’ve identified as having difficulties with getting online…
Leonardo Bravo:
…in the most dire moment of need.
Cyrus Peñarroyo:
Exactly. And so, this project has definitely taken a lot longer than we imagined because we’ve been navigating so much uncertainty for the past year and a half. Basically, until we were able to meet in person.
Leonardo Bravo:
How does the role of you as an academic, as a researcher, as perhaps representing a site of privilege — the institution, how does that work with what you've referred to working around co-authorship and maybe a co-design model? Working with communities to ultimately understand, tease out, gain consensus, gain trust, I would imagine…
Cyrus Peñarroyo:
Yeah, it's been a really exciting process for me because so much of what we've actually done is just listen. We've avoided making any big design moves until we feel like we're hearing from many different voices. Aside from city officials, we’ve also spoken to the leaders of block groups, people who live in the neighborhood, people of different ages or generations. As a designer, what can be challenging is that people oftentimes don't agree with each other, so you have to find some way of representing all of their ideas and establishing a framework for those ideas to coexist in the same space. Up until now, we’ve used our skills to present options, some of which reflect these disagreements, in order to facilitate conversation and hopefully reach some kind of consensus.
Leonardo Bravo:
Let's talk about this fellowship, the Die Akademie Schloss Solitude in Germany, which sounds like the ideal space to have a little bit of time for reflection and reinvigoration.
Cyrus Peñarroyo:
Definitely!
Leonardo Bravo:
How are you approaching that and what will happen? Is there a specific area of research that you're gonna devote to? Is it a three-month residency?
Cyrus Peñarroyo:
I'm there for six months and it's in Stuttgart. I think they offer six-, nine- and twelve-month fellowships. As I mentioned to you before, I've been here at UM for eight years and I've been teaching every semester of that stretch…
Leonardo Bravo:
…on top of all these other exciting projects.
Cyrus Peñarroyo:
Right. I have a sabbatical scheduled for next semester, and knowing that, I decided to apply for this fellowship because I wanted a break from UM, some time to really reflect on my work and think about a path forward. What drew me to Die Akademie Schloss Solitude is the opportunity to be in conversation with other artists and creative thinkers. I’ve enjoyed being in the architecture school, but I don’t attend events in other departments as much as I’d like. So, I was really drawn to the idea that I could share space with dancers, musicians, writers, and that those conversations might inform how I want to move through the world and how I want to work as a designer.
As part of the application, I did have to propose a project, so I’m going to continue developing work around community-driven internet infrastructures. I know that in Germany, Freifunk is one example of many community mesh networks that exist around the world. I want to study that infrastructure within and across Germany and develop urban tactics that consider novel relationships between technologies and physical spaces.
Leonardo Bravo:
That's terrific. Congratulations. Last couple of things. I was really intrigued because I think you do mention it in your bio, the fact you are Filipino-American, FilipinX. How does your sense of identity, your role, your positionality play into the work? And I'm sure it does. I wanted to hear how you define it.
Cyrus Peñarroyo:
I'm really glad you asked this question. This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. What I'll say is that when I started architecture school in 2006, one’s personal narrative didn't really make its way into the work. I actually think, in my education, we were often told to not bring that into the work.
Leonardo Bravo:
And you also went to Princeton?
Cyrus Peñarroyo:
Yeah, I went to Princeton after UIC. Until more recently, architecture students were often discouraged from incorporating their personal experiences in their work because design critics may have a hard time engaging that information. But in my partnership with McLain, I’ve been able to explore questions related to representation, otherness, and belonging.
Leonardo Bravo:
Which are ultimately stories that are being told. There's narratives woven into that.
Cyrus Peñarroyo:
Exactly. And so, in working together, I realized that my interests in these topics has to do with how I see myself, or the degree to which I feel represented in the world. As I dig deeper, I’m realizing that, oh you know, maybe I’m interested in image-making and digital presence because the Philippines is actually one of the most online countries in the world, for example.
Or we know that the Philippines has a pretty robust remittance industry due to high numbers of overseas workers, and we could say that there’s a particular “yearning across distance” that’s intrinsic to the Filipino or Filipino-American experience. When I think about, for instance, my own family's experience in this country, my mom came to the States as a nurse back in the 1970s, as part of a larger industry of labor export. Growing up, I had a very distant relationship with my relatives back in the Philippines. We would occasionally visit them, moving back-and-forth between the two countries. I would say that my interests in communication infrastructure and digital connection somewhat has to do with this constant yearning to be closer, and a unique negotiation of proximity. So yeah, my experiences as a Filipino-American are very present in my work.
Leonardo Bravo:
It's interesting this notion of longing. I'm from Chile, originally came to the States fairly late when I was 12, so I had vivid memories of Chile and there's always that longing for this sense of place. Yet it's almost impossible to recapture because it's the way in which the registers of your memory constructs it. But there's always that longing, that pull, towards that. Especially, if you're the other, if you have this sense of like, there's an otherness to you.
Cyrus Peñarroyo:
Right. And I think a lot about assimilation as well. I grew up in Missouri in a predominantly white neighborhood. I don't recall experiencing racism or discrimination, but if I think hard enough about it, yeah, there were probably micro aggressions that I found ways to cope or deal with. Before regaining its independence, the Philippines’ history as an American colony has, I believe, informed its aspirations toward American culture and whiteness. And this is something that informs how I’ve been working more recently. Again, my interest in image-making and representation is rooted in an ability to see oneself and, more personally, the kind of self-image that I’m presenting to the world.
Leonardo Bravo:
Hmm. That's fascinating. I think to end it, because I always ask what's bringing you joy, a sense of pleasure, you know, especially these last two years, and I noticed that you have been posting about the Wolfgang Tillmans retrospective, which I'm dying to see.
Cyrus Peñarroyo:
Yeah, that's a great question. A really good friend of mine, Phil Taylor, was an assistant curator for that exhibition. I've always been a fan of Wolfgang's work, but I was most excited to be there to support Phil after he spent several years of working on that show.
What's bringing me joy and pleasure right now is my community and support network. In my time here, I’ve been able to develop really close friendships, and even newer relationships that I’m excited about. My community has encouraged me to more fully embrace my queerness and Filipino-American-ness, which has allowed me to feel more deeply connected to myself.
Leonardo Bravo:
That's beautiful. Well, thank you so much. I mean, it's wonderful to get to know you a little bit more and understand different facets of the work, and I really hope that we get to connect and see each other in Germany, and come up to Berlin from Stuttgart.
Cyrus Peñarroyo:
Thanks, Leonardo! Yeah, I will definitely reach out and meet up.
Leonardo Bravo:
Wonderful. Have a great rest of your day!
IG: cyruspenarroyo
https://extents.us/
Great conversation Leonardo👏👏👏