Catalogue 22/The Elephant and the Butterfly

Part of Catalogue 22, Catalogue 22 on Google Maps Designer: Chris Cormier, Chrissy Taylor and Jessica Hickling Degree: M. Architecture School: Carleton University Year: 2012 Project Location: Cleveland, OH Project Status: Unbuilt Car horns, exhaust, slamming doors, the low frequency waves of a car stereo wash over your body. The urban chaos immersing you is so familiar that it takes some time before you realize that today something is different. Something unknown is emerging on the horizon, tangible only in the periphery; you occupy the moment between when a presence is felt behind you and when they announce themselves. All senses at attention, your ears straining against the traffic and the wind and that is when realization hits: it is not wind but a breeze is rustling the trees.

As the traffic beside you falls away, relegated to the underworld, the cityscape beneath your feet transforms and gives way to nature. You revel in the spectacle laid before you: a space of chance and magic within the city. Each person becomes part of the larger performance; Banker, daredevil, teacher and ballerina alike. This forest, new but strangely familiar, stands among landmarks you have known for years but are now seeing again for the first time. The very city that surrounds you seems to sit in waiting, reinvigorated and open to the same possibility.