Opening a Door of Opportunity

UNC Asheville Students and Faculty Build Safehouse Temple Door with MacArthur Fellow Mel Chin

By UNC Asheville

July 16^th, 2021

In Creative Fabrication: Art Meets Technology (ENGR 173) UNC Asheville students focus on human-centered design and fabrication from an engineering perspective. In maymester 2021, they layered in additional perspectives in social justice, thanks to the opportunity to work alongside 2019 MacArthur Fellow Mel Chin in the engineering and fabrication of the Safehouse Temple Door, a commissioned public artwork newly installed at Sweet Water Foundation’s (SWF) Civic Arts Church in Chicago, IL.

Weighing nearly 1500 pounds and standing 10 feet tall, the Safehouse Temple Door is a functioning steel bank vault door installed on the facade of Civic Arts Church, a historic building that was recently transformed to amplify the rich African American heritage of its community. The door serves to raise attention to lead contamination in water, soil, and housing with the site serving as one of several activation points for the Chicago Fundred Initiative: A Bill for IL.

For this massive project, seven undergraduate students designed and fabricated the two circular parts of the door: the kinetic locking mechanism and side wheel. Their work took place in UNC Asheville’s STEAM Studio over the month-long summer session called maymester, and even in that short time, they encountered challenges and creative opportunities.

“What looks great on a 2D paper sketch may not look great in 3D, which in turn may not work well in a functional prototype,” says Senior Advisor to the Provost and Collaborative Co-Founder of STEAM Studio Susan Reiser. “Each step forward requires refinement or even a redesign. For the Safehouse Temple Door, the locking mechanism was particularly challenging. Having barn doors was important conceptually, yet it complicated the design because the center wheel needed to rotate and split and lock."

The Safehouse Temple Door is one of 29 MacArthur Fellow commissioned artworks affiliated with the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art Chicago-based city-wide exhibition that celebrates the 40th anniversary of the fellowship, which begun in 1981 by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Mel Chin was named a MacArthur genius in 2019, and in 2021, he became a recipient of an Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts at UNC Asheville.

The Safehouse Temple Door is not the first major cross-country commissioned installation that students contributed to engineering and fabricating, but the second. In the summer of 2018, UNC Asheville students, faculty, and staff fabricated “Wake” and then traveled to New York City’s Times Square to install the large-scale installation with subtle animatronic motion. It was the largest public art installation to date in New York City’s Times Square. As of summer 2021, the central figure of Wake - Jenny Lind - has taken residence at 44 Collier Ave. in Asheville and continues to bring food for thought about commercialism and climate.

“Mel’s work is intrinsically interdisciplinary and uses collaborative forces to address the issues of our times,” says Sara Sanders, director of UNC Asheville’s STEAM Studio and UNC Asheville alumna. “This approach is central to STEAM’s mission of creating space and resources for collaborative, transdisciplinary problem-solving.”

Sanders led the design and engineering of both projects and was first approached by Mel Chin about creating Safehouse Temple Door at the beginning of fall semester 2020. As lead engineer and project manager, she went to work on designing the door with help from Chas Llewellyn, STEAM Studio technician and UNC Asheville alumnus. Over many months, she would engage almost two dozen UNC Asheville students, faculty, and staff on the design, fabrication, engineering, and behind-the-scenes administration to create the Safehouse Temple Door. Throughout the process, S.O.U.R.C.E (Mel Chin & Amanda Wiles) and Emmanuel Pratt, co-founder of Sweet Water Foundation, would provide critique, coaching, and direction to the students.

“Working with fabricators to achieve your vision takes trust, and if anybody has gained that, it is Sara Sanders and the UNC Asheville STEAM Studio.”

The collaboration extends through the educational programs through the Asheville community, with national and international connections and impact.

“Mel’s work is prolific and he is generous with his wisdom and skillset,” says Sanders. “It is incredibly rare and special for undergraduate students to have access to a teacher and practitioner like Mel, and it is a uniquely UNC Asheville experience for students to investigate an issue, engage with stakeholders, and ultimately contribute to a major sculpture for a MacArthur Fellow that challenges and confronts social and ecological issues to create positive change.”

“It is about communities: The community you are in, the ones you associate with,” reflects Chin when asked about his connection to UNC Asheville STEAM Studio and the Chicago community. “It’s great to work with both of them. That is how you build strength and solidarity and it’s a good time for that. We live in a time where we need that.”

Safehouse Temple Door at Sweet Water Foundation’s Civic Arts Church is similar to the Fundred Safehouse of New Orleans (2008-2010), where Fundred’s mission to end childhood lead poisoning began. This new installation in Chicago carries the same message in raising awareness about lead contamination in water, soil, and housing. Safehouse Temple Door’s placement is on a building (a former church) originally designated as a “Temple” of “Healing and Delivery.” This is poignant and fitting as it coincides with the mission of Sweet Water Foundation as well as Fundred, which started in a neighborhood with a similar mission. Fundred continues to deliver the message of a lead-free childhood for all and invests in acts of people for acts of policy essential for healing. The Safehouse Temple Door is a proper new icon in Chicago where conditions of lead poisoning also persist.