Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1546033
The City wasn't simply another large-scale set for a competition show. Hundreds of contestants would sleep, train, strategize and build friendships there. For five weeks, the contests would experience the City as an immersive reality rather than a temporary environment built for cameras. And somehow, in roughly ninety days, my design partner Isabella Scannone and I needed to help turn that idea into reality. Looking back, the compressed schedule, the relentless weather delays and the sheer scale of the project all seem daunting. But what I remember most clearly is the creative challenge that sat at the center of it all. What should the City be? Reinventing the City One of the easiest mistakes we could have made in season two would have been simply making a bigger version of the season one City. The original City had been enormously successful. Its inspiration came from the nuclear test "doom towns" of the 1950s—those strange suburban environments built to study the effects of atomic blasts. There was something inherently unsettling about them. Perfect streets. Perfect houses. An artificial sense of normalcy, with an undercurrent of wrongness. That tension became part of the City's identity. But after season one, executive producers Tyler Conklin, Matt Apps and Sean Klitzner observed DRINK FRIDGE DRINK FRIDGE PRODUCT PRODUCT DIGITAL PRINT SHADECLOTH DIGITAL PRINT SHADECLOTH DIGITAL PRINT SHADECLOTH COLD PLUNGE PORT A POT TY IN T HIS SPACE PORT A POT TY IN T HIS SPACE PORT A POT TY IN T HIS SPACE PORT A POT TY IN T HIS SPACE PORT A POT TY IN T HIS SPACE PORT A POT TY IN T HIS SPACE PORT A POT TY IN T HIS SPACE PORT A POT TY IN T HIS SPACE PORT A POT TY IN T HIS SPACE PORT A POT TY IN T HIS SPACE TANK SLED TIRE OUTDOOR GYM CREW HIDE CREW HIDE CREW HIDE CREW HIDE SHOWER TRAILER SHOWER TRAILER CAST CATERING CAST CATERING PATH CAST PATH TO BATHROOMS AND SHOWERS LOADING AND UNLOADING ONLY! CREW BACK ENTRANCE CREW BACK ENTRANCE 20'-0" 160'-0" MEDIC CAST CARE LOADING AND UNLOADING ONLY! CREW BACK ENTRANCE CREW BACK ENTRANCE 20'-0" 160'-0" TOILETS CAST SINK WALL VIDEO BILLBOARD WATER STATION WATER STATION CONDOR PARKING SEC RE T D OOR WROUGH T IRON GAT E 18'-0" 78'-0" 5'-7" WALL STOR AGE PREST ER A 1 /2 RAC K SHOWER PREST ER A 1 /2 RAC K DU AL PU LLE Y SCISSOR PARKING SCISSOR PARKING STARBUCKS A. THE CITY IN DAYTIME. ILLUSTRATION. B. THE CITY THREE WEEKS BEFORE MOVE-IN. AERIAL PHOTO. C. THE CITY. PLAN. DRAWN IN VECTORWORKS BY BRIAN BAKER. B A C