Context (Santiago Pass)

Chicken Shack Village is a collaborative project that fuses functional sculpture, architecture and community art. It engages people through a community art practice that reflects the ideas of the new genre public art movement. Suzanne Lacy, who is prominent in the new genre public art movement explains, "Unlike much of what has heretofore been called public art, new genre public art- visual art that uses both traditional and non-traditional media to communicate and interact with a broad and diversified audience about issues directly relevant to their lives- is based on engagement."

The local Boulder vernacular and historical reference provided a foundation for our investigation of the architectural forms included in the Chicken Shack Village. While the Chicken Shack village is situated in Boulder, Colorado, it provides a model for other communities globally. Consideration to current environmental issues is also a motivating factor. The opportunity to engage in a Chicken Shack Village encompasses a closed loop system and allows members of a community to be active participants concerning the environmental dialogue of sustainable living.