Architect, Richard Johnson Design
http://www.richardjohnsondesign.net/
Richard Johnson, architect and designer, has for the past twenty years worked on a wide variety of research projects, art installations, and architectural projects for galleries and museums, as well as in public spaces throughout the United Sates. His varied projects have lead him, both individually and as a member of collaborative groups, to explore the fields of art, architecture, mobility, technology, and urbanism and to investigate how these themes permeate and shape our daily environment.
Having received a Bachelors degree in Interdisciplinary Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute and a Masters in Architecture from UC Berkeley, Johnson has extensive experience in creating engaging and accessible work as an architect, as well as an artist. Skilled in applying both physical and digital tools in his work, Johnson is especially interested in [their] capacity to compliment a researched based creative practice. While Johnson’s work has previously been focused on art installation, architecture, and the urban landscape, he believes [these methods] are well suited to a wide range of artistic and design approaches, whether it be museum installation, gardens or empty urban lots.
Johnson’s career has taken many diverse turns, giving him a unique professional perspective, which thrives on the combination of multiple disciplines. Working in a variety of art and design sectors, including architectural projects, art museums, galleries, artist residencies and science museums, most notably, the Exploratorium where Johnson spent five years managing the Artist in Residence Program, as well as designing and developing exhibits with artists and the public, Johnson finds it essential to understand and engage in the ways in which the public interfaces with projects at galleries and museums, as well as on the city streets.
Johnson’s strengths are based on his ability to create works that are contextual in nature; through the understanding of a site’s history, topology, natural dynamics, and how people relate to place. Before venturing out on his own, most notably, Johnson spent five years at the Exploratorium managing the Artist in Residence Program, as well as designing and developing exhibits with artists and public. Johnson’s projects often propose experiments that look at new ways of defining and interacting with aspects of public life. Several of his recent projects and proposals researched, analyzed, and responded to public urban systems with in a wide range of media, including the design build project “Offsite” at Southern Exposure, “The Garden of Forking Paths” at the Oxbow School in Napa, “World Trade Center Memorial”, “Performative Playground”, “Thick Skin”, “22x15” and “Field Conditions”.
Because each project Johnson undertakes has a unique set of constraints and possibilities, on a material level and an infrastructural level, he finds it important to interrogate familiar architectural and artistic notions of form, program, and site. Inspired by these inquiries, Johnson considers methods in which his own work can experiment with the potential ways that material systems and urban systems can impact our built environment. While never forgetting that a sensitivity to play and whimsy in design is just as important as rigor in creating engaging work, Johnson’s ultimate aim is to create work that provokes a sense of curiosity and possibility by engaging in the contemporary dialog currently shaping our public and urban spaces.
