Olalekan Jeyifous experiments with sampling and remix in multiple ways within his Surface Armatures series. His visualization process itself begins with downloading, editing, and collaging existing digital models from open-source portals. The machine-like parasites attached to the surface of abandoned industrial buildings can also be imagined to exist as physical graffiti pieces that allow informal occupation. Finally, these armatures move across the surface of the host buildings, creating graffiti art of their own. The result is one of the most convincing depictions of Hip-Hop Architecture.

Perspective renderings, 2014

For her upcoming Crenshaw District Hieroglyph Project, Lauren Halsey continues the theme of carving culturally charged images onto 12”x12” wall tiles used in previous installations. The new project is planned as a permanent structure embedded within the Crenshaw community, with carved panels, or hieroglyphs, hand engraved by the local public. Halsey imagines these as “a medium to express narratives, honor community leaders, celebrate events, [and] leave memorials.” A full-scale prototype of this structure was display at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles in 2018.

Collage, 2017

One of the earliest recorded architecture thesis projects to explicitly reference hip-hop culture in its design, There Are No Blank Sheets of Paper collaged photographs, lines, various transparent and opaque media, and quotes from hip-hop lyrics to describe a new kind of urban occupation. Collage serves not only as a process for design and a method of representation, but as a way of understanding the city and its layered interventions.

Mixed media, oil stick, collage on paper, 1997

Similar in process to James Garrett, Jr.’s Schmo ’15, Delta’s installation at the De Fabriek gallery in Eindhoven, Netherlands imagines graffiti that exists not just as a surface application to existing walls, but also as an agent for delaminating and deconstructing wall construction. Though no legible lettering is used, the installation is stylistically consistent with his early graffiti art, here using wood framing, gypsum board, and various layers of insulation and wall paneling as his palette in lieu of colored cans of spray paint.

Installation photographs, 2010

Chris Cornelius, Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Architecture & Urban Planning, led two studios asking students to design a “Museum of Hip-Hop” in Brooklyn, NY. Fourth-year undergraduates in 2015 and graduate students in 2017 created designs for the museum based on drawing and model studies of various aspects of hip-hop culture. “SNAFU” and “song analysis” drawings dissect hip-hop production into diagrams for form generation, and “found object” models comment on the tradition of making “something from nothing”—one of hip-hop’s core ideals.