Had To Be There Vol.1

Name: Had To Be There Vol.1
Brand: FUTURE IS COLOR
Price: 55.0 USD
Availability: InStock

A visual archive of Studio Sessions, community, and the cultural life we built together.

$55.00

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Had To Be There Vol.1 documents the first three years of Studio Sessions, a community experiment that began inside a small design studio in San Diego and evolved into a living ecosystem of music, art, and shared presence.What started with twenty-five chairs and a band became something far less easy to name and far more necessary to experience. In a time marked by loneliness, digital fatigue, and social fragmentation, Studio Sessions asked a simple question: What happens when space is designed around relationship instead of transaction?Through essays, reflections, and documentation from 2023 to 2025, this volume traces the emergence of a third space built through repetition, listening, and care. It explores how proximity rebuilds trust, how gathering becomes a form of infrastructure, and how belonging functions not as a feeling, but as an environment intentionally constructed.This book is a study of how community forms, what it requires, and why it matters.Some things you truly have to be there for.

Erwin Hines is an artist, designer, and creative director whose work centers on using design as a tool for reflection, conversation, and cultural inquiry. Through FUTURE IS COLOR®, he explores how space, objects, and shared experiences can create the conditions for deeper human connection.

His practice moves across disciplines, from brand and product design to physical environments and community-based programming, with a consistent focus on how design shapes the way people see themselves and relate to one another. His work has contributed to projects with companies including Google, COACH, Beats by Dre, Under Armour, and The Webby Awards.

At its core, his work is driven by a simple intention: to create opportunities for people to slow down, reflect, and engage more honestly with themselves and with each other

Some things can only be understood if you were there. This book gets as close as possible.

San Diego is often seen through the lens of leisure, tourism, and surface. But beneath that is a layered cultural life shaped by communities who have sustained it through everyday creativity, care, and resourcefulness .

Where It Started?

What began in the FUTURE IS COLOR® studio at 2060 Logan Avenue was never meant to be a formal institution, but a workspace that slowly became something more: a place where people lingered, talked, returned, and recognized themselves in one another. Over time, it evolved into a true third space, organized around ideas, trust, and human connection rather than transaction. Had To Be There Vol. 1 is an archive of that evolution, capturing how a room became a rhythm, and how that rhythm became community.

A book about what gathering can do.

This volume brings together photographs, essays, reflections, and design language from the first years of Studio Sessions, organized around the core ideas that shaped the work: space, connection, belonging, and the politics of gathering. It doesn’t just document events, it documents a philosophy. A gathering is never only a gathering; it is a site where culture is created, where relationships are sustained, and where futures are openly practiced.

What It Means to Build Belonging

Belonging does not happen by accident; it is built through care, consistency, and the simple act of showing up for one another over time. This book captures what becomes possible when space is designed around human connection instead of transaction, and when people are given the conditions to feel present, recognized, and at ease. In a time shaped by disconnection, it stands as both a record and a reminder that community is not something we find, but something we practice together.

Behind Had To Be There Vol.1

About Erwin Hines

Erwin Hines is the founder of FUTURE IS COLOR® and the creator of Studio Sessions, a community-centered cultural platform based in San Diego. His work explores how design, space, and gathering can shape connection, belonging, and collective experience. Through clothing, events, and storytelling, he builds environments where people can feel present, recognized, and part of something larger than themselves.