dismantle; investigate; curate; inform; agitate; question; draw; create; criticise; suggest; enable; exhibit; stage; SHIFT
do you want to save changes to
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“shift” before closing?
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www.nowness.com/series/lovesick/the-question-of-love-williamson-alain-badiou
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business as usual
welcome ‘Your eyes can deceive you. Don’t trust them’ 1 - Obi-Wan Kenobi It’s not Venturi, and it’s not Rossi. And it’s probably not drawn from our immediate context. Yet these words resonate with 2020. We are moving by incredibly quickly, far too quickly to be completely honest. Consistently active yet seemingly absent. We live and breathe through algorithms and databases in our own individualised communities, more connected than ever, yet at the same time incredibly disconnected. In Benjamin H. Bratton’s manifesto for the Strelka Institute’s 2017-19 program, he states that “Something has shifted. We are making new worlds faster than we can keep track of them” 2. We can access everything at the move of a finger and expose ourselves to culture, knowledge, narratives and leisure (whatever that really means) without even leaving our homes. This inundation of content and infinite accessibility to choice is an extremely privileged circumstance to be in, but nonetheless relevant. We interact with both the built and ‘natural’ environment like we are in “an airport, [following] the signage irresistibly, waiting to be directed”3. In the name of speed and productivity we are receiving information at an alarming rate without processing a whole lot of it. How are we currently filtering this? Do we rely on our subscription to The Guardian? The Daily Mail? Monday night dinner at our parents house? As soon as we have a pause from this saturation, so much has already changed and developed. Will we ever be able to run at the same pace as the forces around us? Will we ever break through the static? And in a time where social interaction is undergoing a momentous re-construction, we must wonder if this incessant feed of data has led to the removal of intellectual debate and critical discussion from a large portion of society. The City of Melbourne has recently approved the construction of four major building projects to keep the industry afloat during this tumultuous time of economic uncertainty4. The nature of each proposal is a reminder that we live in an economy, a reflection of the priorities of both local and global actors. Throughout the 20th century we have seen a shift in power, the agency of the architect has been stripped
by the corporate, calling into question how we practice - and where our priorities lie. It’s almost impossible for a studio to remove itself from a society built around an economy and many are demonstrating how you can agitate it from the inside. But alongside this comes an endless line of contradictions to face. Think big, but not too big. Be ambitious but not utopic. Be progressive, but not too lefty (we’re not socialists). You have to be practical, think of the economy. Use your morals to direct your judgment, but remove them if they stop you completing your task. Be critical. But think realistically, the world is the way it is. Be radical - but don’t upset the investors, this is privately owned remember.
How are we supposed to navigate this?
For sure, the world is the way it is. And sometimes that means playing the game. However to make systemic and structural change will require us to generate a stronger dialogue with one another. To acknowledge and be aware of (ALL) the currents that are moving around us and to maintain a level of objectiveness. Objectiveness in this sense is not abandoning your voice or critical thought, but more in removing a sense of authorship and single view of an idea. It’s about representation through multiple perspectives to strengthen and layer it with more complexity and meaning. A reciprocal approach. Listening to others and working together to solve problems, to test new ideas, to agitate and experiment. A network. An infrastructure. An investigative team. An assembly.
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1 Alec Guinness Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope (1977) 2 Benjamin H. Bratton, The New Normal (Strelka Press 2017)
INPUT
3 Marina Van Zuylen “A Proper Occupation”, in Work, Body, Leisure (Het Nieuwe Instituut 2018)
back to normal
feedback loop diagram
OUTPUT
4 Editorial Desk AAU Development approval blitz in Victoria (Architecture Media, 2020) https://architectureau.com/
CONTRIBUTORS; Millie Cattlin Paulo Cirio Andrew Clapham Rubi Dinardo Tori Dinardo Will Dundon Josef Fonti Yuchen Gao Jack Murrary Madeleine Palmer Jack Stirling Lou Verga Jono Ware
SAM TORRE vii
sims 2020
metahaven: field report
SAM TORRE
SAM TORRE
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home is
caretaking and maintenance a conversation w Millie Cattlin
MADELEINE PALMER
SAM TORRE
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everythingness
a territorial approach: in discussion with jono ware
what
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JACK STIRLING
SAM TORRE
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end of the escape
house 2019 (2020?)
JACK MURRAY
RUBI DINARDO, TORI DINARDO, LOU VERGA, SAM TORRE
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viii
keep it real (estate)
SAM TORRE
SAM TORRE
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leisure?centre
interplanetary lounge
SAM TORRE
LOU VERGA
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map(s) of the world
speed of extinction
SAM TORRE
YUCHEN GAO
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sociality.today
be speedy
where
mobile home (and britney)
PAULO CIRIO
SAM TORRE
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motherlode $$$$$$
simon
I hope this email finds you well during these unprecedented times!
simon has spent his days in iso making memes for his blog all-the-while sharing his podcast on why trump worked with china to develop the covid-19 virus and let it spread
beth & drew 17 kurrak ln $23,000 bethany and drew decided to use house party to keep in contact with their group of friends. drew heard rumours of the app hacking people’s bank accounts and immediately went on a social media rampage to warn people to delete their accounts.
the savoys 24 sunday creek rd $1,879,200 tobias is supposed to be studying for sixth upcoming sacs (online mode) but has spent his days in iso rewatching the last airbender and studio ghibli. jane is a nurse in the city and wary of how her job can potentially bring dangers to the household. ken is trying to keep balance between tobias, jane and their 14 year old daughter, sarah whilst working from home.
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the stevens 8 malabar gr $829,570 after being refused a refund for her excess purchases of tp, karen was forcibly removed and banned from her local woolies. she has been spending the remainder of her days in iso trolling the comment section on facebook. meanwhile rick is preparing the bunker he built back in 2012 as john spends his days spying on his neighbour taylor through a hole in the fence...
colleen & bob 97 wattletree rd $304,700
lucas
with the pub closed, lucas decided to host zoom conversations with the boys but it fell apart when damo threw up on his laptop. now the lads have just decided to have a break from the sesh for a few weeks.
SAM TORRE 11
WFH
colleen and bob haven’t seen their kids or grandparents for over four weeks for their own protection. whilst they tell their loved ones they miss them on the phone, they are happy and relieved to have their own space during the autumn months for their annual forage...
infinite content, infinitely not content
metahaven: field report
It’s only fitting that the design collective, Metahaven, would arrive to Australia during a time when there is a complete lack of transparency in our politics and media. Based in Amsterdam since 2007, the design collective’s exhibition, Field Report (2020), taps into the prevalent uncertainty (and chaos) that is currently plaguing our planet by exposing and amplifying the overload of information experienced in contemporary life. The exhibition is as stripped back as it is evocative. Speculative and diverse, it contains varying mediums that reflect the collective’s signature application of the graphic medium in establishing a dialogue between audience and idea. Employing film, textiles, poetry, found internet footage, music, folktales and digital design, Metahaven have executed a meticulously layered body of work that reflects the complexities of what is means to live in modern society.
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The complete absence of a human being is both eerie and encapsulating SAM TORRE 13
hey siri?
Upon entering the dark-lit corridor of the Design Hub Gallery, an acoustic piece plays overhead - setting the contemplative and disruptive mood of the exhibition. Custom timber benches are platforms for several of Metahaven’s publications; Digital Tarkovsky, Uncorporate Identity and Psyop: An Anthology. An explosive zine accompanies the exhibition, created by Metahaven and the Design Hub Gallery team. Perfectly balancing order and disorder, it remains true to the Dutch collective’s brooding and provocative aesthetic. Electric both in appearance and content, the zine is essential before, during and after the gallery experience by providing context and offering an insight into the working minds of Vinca Kruk and Daniel Van Der Velden.
data overload
Arrows I, II & III (2020) occupy the expansive white walls of the main gallery space. An assemblage of highly detailed textiles, this series considers historical timelines translated into image. These intricate graphic translations position us to question how we construct the notion of time in the digital age. As everything is immediately accessible, how do we develop a concept of time that is slower than the swipe of a finger? How do we reach an attention span that matches the considerered speed of a Tarkovsky film take when we are constantly saturated with information?
How do we reach an attention span that matches the considerered speed of a Tarkovsky film take when we are constantly saturated with information?
The physicality of the wall tapestries extends to a stage-like design comprised of a beautifully crafted timber base and an intricately designed tufted carpet. Sitting at the end of this is Metahaven’s 2018 film, Eurasia (Questions on Happiness) stretching across 16 TV screens - the carpet offering a space for collective viewing. Shot in the Ural District of Russia – the unofficial border between Europe and Asia – Metahaven have used a place of geographical and geopolitical significance to act as the backdrop for a film that communicates how man-made efforts have blurred the lines between politics, the media, truth and deception. Shots of the south-eastern Ural landscapes are interspersed with found footage from the internet that ranges from news reports on Macedonian fake news manufactures to the interview of a Chinese entrepreneur who mass-produces funky plastic drinking straws. 14
These elements are richly layered with poetry, graphics and electronic music to construct a film that renders our worlds state of misinformation and almost inaccessibility to truth and transparency in politics and the media – a world bound by a network of internet signals.
Through their immersive cinematic style, Metahaven have demonstrated how the role of technology has led to a bed of data so complex that fact cannot be discerned from fiction.
Metahaven: Field Report was initially set to be open from March 7th to the 9th of May, 2020 However due to Covid-19 has been temporarily closed. The exhibition content can still be explored on the RMIT Design Hub website. Image credits: Installation view, Metahaven: Field Report, RMIT Design Hub Gallery. Photo: Tobias Titz.
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fake news!
Perhaps the most iconic imagery seen in the film is the footage of a single camera attached to a tripod on top of a hill, overlooking the Ural mountain range. Filming this is a drone that in turn, is filmed by the stationary camera. The complete absence of a human being is both eerie and encapsulating, as though the human’s role has become a “disembodied gaze, the gaze without the viewer” (Anastasiia Fedorova). This seductive sequence urges us to ask - how we are to navigate space, time and information when we are constantly active, yet seemingly absent?
“it houses more overlapping social formations, turning traditional architectural space itself into a kind of displaced vestigial technology” 1
1 Beatriz Colomina & Mark Wigley “Homo Cellular” in Are We Human? (Lars Muller Publishers 2017)
virtual patio
augmented reality roof garden
skylight
flip-wall disassemble for mobile use
modular kitchen
flip-door
single desk workspace
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your file is corrupt
SAM TORRE
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what are we doing?
We are matching this speed, building more and more, quicker and quicker than history has ever seen. The remarkable capabilities of technology and contemporary construction has led to poor decision making. Melbourne’s town planning has demonstrated the complexity of negotiating the built environment and giving in to an economic system that demands constant activity. This was clear in the recent announcement of the Victorian State Government greenlighting four large scale projects to keep the construction industry afloat during these tumultous times1. Whilst the necessity of this industry cannot be questioned, the development of these projects don’t address longer-term issues in Melbourne such as energy efficiency and social and affordable housing.
Meeting the demands of contemporary society doesn’t mean mirroring their speed. We have become too speedy. Too speedy in the way we work. Too speedy in the way we interact. Too speedy in how spend our down-time. We are watching Netflix whilst we study. Watching the news whilst we work. Catching up on emails during a movie night and answering texts during moments of intimacy with others. Work, in all its guises, has seeped into our 24 hour body clock but how does this impact our relationship with the built environment? Our irresistible desire to be productive is present at every waking moment (and even every non-waking moment, as we use apps to monitor and optimise our sleeping patterns and ‘blue screen’ time). The ability to access anything at the speed of a finger tap, has reconstructed how we interact with the physical realm. Architecture, shelter, is no longer able to separate program. It has evolved into one blurred landscape bound by a network of internet signals. Architectural vision has always been the ability to envision a built space, with a single idea that constitutes its physical and conceptual form and program. But what if these great ideas, dynamic processes and innovative practices are simply flying by too fast for people to notice or care?
How do we negotiate built form and the speed at which humans now live? 18
More time for research and experimentation that actively involves and engages the community (at micro and macro scales) is essential if we want architecture to still have relevance in the public realm and avoid a city that “exists only in order to be left”2. It’s the role of a city’s non-places to be the instigators of research that expands on a continuing discussion of theory and moves into physical space as a means to investigate and agitate convention – Internationally we have seen collectives to the likes of Assemble and Raumlabor who have transformed apparent “non-spaces” into what I would consider urban performance pieces. Shifting between the realms of art and architecture, their projects demonstrate how the temporary can provide a city with a laboratory for alternative strategies. They move beyond a simple civic intervention and instead offer spaces to test and experiment. Similarly, right in our backyard we have These Are The Projects We Do Together, who collaborate with institutions to establish a dialogue between art, design, education, architecture and the public, with a constantly changing roster of disciplines and backgrounds. There’s a strong sense of fluidity that enables these alternative forms of practice. Approaching the urban environment in such a non-prescriptive method could perhaps be a way to address our “intensive repetitive”3 behaviour.
1 Editorial Desk AAU Development approval blitz in Victoria (Architecture Media, 2020) https://architectureau.com/ articles/development-approval-blitz-in-victoria/ Accessed: 24/04/2019 2, 3 Marina Van Zuylen “A Proper Occupation”, in Work, Body, Leisure (Het Nieuwe Instituut 2018)
image Spacebuster, 2009 Raumlabor source: raumlabor.net
SAM TORRE 19
common ground
Approaching the urban environment in such a nonprescriptive method could perhaps be a way to address our “intensive repetitive”3 behaviour.
4 Marina Van Zuylen “A Proper Occupation”, in Work, Body, Leisure (Het Nieuwe Instituut 2018)
I played the sims, I totally get real estate
Image Continuously Under Construction 2: Hostile Infrastructure, 2019 These Are The Projects We Do Together Photo: theprojects.com.au
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If we consider architecture as a medium, it is fixed, solid and stuck. So often we see master plans for urban developments with beautiful renders and heavily populated with people. They suggest social connectivity and an almost utopic way of living. Yet the problem here is that before a square metre of the existing soil has even been touched, there is a pre-determined proposal, a fixed agenda that can be both standardised and alienating as it is founded on an expectation of how people will occupy it. A city is constantly shifting and it’s always under construction. Trends come and go, views on sustainability change with government leadership and we may never see the desperate attempt of so many of us to move closer to the centre. A single building will never be able to address these levels of fluctuation. So should we stop trying to?
Should we instead treat pockets of non-spaces as places of rent? Zones in the city that have a ‘temporary overlay’ – where architecture cannot be permanent.
Could these ‘places of rent’ embed a theatrical element in Melbourne to combat the blurred spaces of work, leisure and home? Or would these transformed non-places only feed our insatiable need for new content? Would they become just another distraction, experiences that add to our long list of multi-tasks to occupy our “in-between time”4? Whether it sounds like naivety or the ignorance of an architecture student without a degree, I believe the designers and makers of Melbourne can establish more spaces that will move past being just another diversion but instead foster an experimental feeding ground. An experiment of the civic. How do people use these spaces? Do they even use these spaces? Do the wider community participate and have agency in these spaces? Each development leads to new questions - an infrastructure that is built up, packed down and built again.
To investigate alternative ways to address the complexity of a city that cannot keep up with itself. Perhaps this isn’t just a question for planning, but how we practice architecture. And the role of interdisciplinary action. Not just interdisciplinary with those in our extended field, not just with fellow creatives. But with scientists, IT experts, technicians, cooks, cleaners, the local scout group – the people we share a fence with. How do they occupy these experiments? We could consider this a ‘field operation’, an attempt to break through the hypercharged static of the 21st century way of living in the hope of developing a system of collective care. 21
build less
Sites whose program, design and function have a fluid nature. A small gesture before a big move, allowing the city to have a more organic nature, with spaces that are adaptable, can be added to and taken away from. And most importantly, don’t retain a high level of authorship, but rather a general attitude to the collective. This could become a potential method in negotiating the built environment and the evolving cyber-hybrid being that humans have become.
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Home is an entity both personal and shared Home is where I’m most vulnerable Home is dog greetings at the door Home is a congregation of memories Home is familiar Home is where I dream Home is the people I hold dearest Home is where I reflect Home is my springboard Home is where I experienced my first steps and first falls Home is where I gather strength Home is picking strawberries with grandma and grandad Home is painting Home is my chosen community Home is my comfort zone Home is my childhood Home is a feeling of the sameness in soul Home is in those who care selflessly Home is where family gathers Home is filled with love Home is him Home is in those who guide me Home is building mazes and towers out of video cases Home is my location of reference
home is
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Home is where I dance and sing most freely Home is when Dad plays Kylie Minogue Home is habitual Home is imperfect Home is symbiotic Home is a constant Home is my centre of the world Home is what sparks nostalgia Home is where I feel most special Home is where I let tears fall Home is an extension of myself Home is introspective Home is safe Home is timeless Home isn't taught Home is ancestral Home is forgiving Home is important Home is inspiring Home is the everyday Home is multifaceted Home is universal Home is felt Home is a wonderful place to be. a platform
MADELEINE PALMER
step back
caretaking and maintenance
At the moment the phrase ‘going back to normal’ is probably mentioned everyday, almost becoming a slogan, as a way to get ourselves through our current circumstances. But in a world that is facing the reality that we will never truly go back to the way things were pre-pandemic, it seems only fitting to go beyond just discussing alternative futures and begin practicing them. The relentless chase for productivity has come to an uncompromising halt. Now is an essential, and perhaps only, time that we can stop and reflect. Hopefully we can begin to establish and implement an infrastructure that can break away from conventional practice and facilitate a positive shift in our epoch post-pandemic.
Since its conception, These Are The Projects We Do Together has sat on the fringes of the architectural discourse in Melbourne. Experiments of the urban realm, the public are provided access to sites that act as platforms for both the creative and wider community. An attitude of caretaking and maintenance underpins the studio’s practice, where interdisciplinary collaboration is used to experiment, educate and drive ideas. Through the occupation of Testing Grounds, Siteworks and The Quarry, the concept of infrastructure is fostered alongside a generosity towards the ever-changing built environment. The studio is led by Millie Cattlin and Joseph Norster - a team who have negotiated public space in ways unknown to Melbourne. Millie graciously gave her time to be interviewed to discuss their practice, the built environment and the role of caretaking. 24
SAM TORRE - This publication is centred around the idea of shift - especially now how do you interpret this word in the context of the built environment? MILLIE CATTLIN - I studied architecture, as well as interiors - both at RMIT. From the outset I’ve always had a real issue with architecture, to be brutally honest. I love buildings, I love cities, sometimes I think maybe I should have studied urban design. I would say I’m utterly fascinated in the built environment almost as a way of understanding humanity and how we all exist together in these complex ways. But I have fundamental issues with the business and practice of architecture. I don’t operate in that world, conventionally, I continue to be a registered architect, if anything it kind of gets me through the work I do. I sense that there’s a shift, especially in university, and student groups, such as the guys who did Caliper and lots of other people. There seems to be this undercurrent or this shift of really substantial questioning of what the fuck we’re all doing. Why there’s this aspiration to kind of build bigger, build new, build more, build flashier, more expensive. These ambitions of most architectural practices are tied to an economy which is deeply flawed. So goddamn I hope there’s a shift.
I work entirely collaboratively with my husband, his name is Joe, and he doesn’t come from an architectural background. He comes from theatre design and lighting design. When we started it goes back to a pretty fundamental question, okay you finish uni, you got all these ideas, you were given this immense free range in terms of creative briefs and projects and all this stuff that happens when you’re a student. Then you get out into the real world and it’s like ‘fuck what am I going to do?’ My neighbours kitchen, or my auntie’s bathroom, it’s just this horrendous reality check. We started doing was stuff in public that we wanted to do.
I’m utterly fascinated in the built environment almost as a way of understanding humanity
we really do fall in love with our sites and we respond to them in incredibly incremental ways, over many years.
Your practice is all about stepping back, slowing down and letting things unfold and your projects really demonstrate how invaluable this process is. How challenging was this to achieve when you had studied and worked in an industry that is built upon this relentless chase for work and intense productivity? The irony is, we seem to just be endlessly so busy. The questioning of conventions of architecture has definitely been present and there’s been a slowing there. I think one thing that is different is that we now run these projects. Although these are in essence temporary projects, we actually spend a huge amount of time with them. Unlike a site visit or a conventional architectural approach where you visit a site, maybe spend half an hour there, take a lot of photos, you get your site plans and then you commence design. We sit on these sites for years. That’s where the slowness comes into it - it’s this very embedded approach. We really do fall in love with our sites. And we respond to them in incredibly incremental ways, over many years.
MILLIE CATTLIN with SAM TORRE 25
infrastructure
I watched the Self-Made City podcast you were on the panel for back in 2017 (undertaken at the Wheeler Centre as part of Open House Melbourne). You mentioned the first or early kind of guerrilla projects you started doing, and I thought they were so fascinating, could you talk to these and how they came about?
It was always low-tech because there was no budget, it was always very ephemeral and they were always based upon things that could be easily packed up, light on the ground, quite robust and a little bit experimental. They always involved us participating with stuff. There were two that really started us off. I don’t know if you know those camping torches, those really rectangular camping torches? We got two hundred of them from Energizer and just started taking them into public spaces and setting them up at night, primarily at Fed Square. The other one we did was build a three wheeled cargo bike with a projection system in it and then started projecting on buildings and riding around. The projects took a life of their own and we got picked up by little festivals and organisations like the NGV. They were really emerging of my interest in the city and also Joe’s technical capacity and theatrical interest in setting scenes. I’m very much about trying to work in a way that wasn’t beholden to a client and wasn’t limited by the imagination of a client. I did do a few kitchens as well I must admit.
it’s an attitude Saxon Street Design and Operations Principles Andrew Clapham & These Are The Projects We Do Together 26
You have this concept of a caretaker, as a kind of identity - and it’s such a different role to the conventional architect, was this something that evolved during these guerilla projects or whilst you were studying?
it’s about having an attitude I think the processes of using these non-place sites as sites of investigation is so interesting. And to experiment before making a larger move. It reminds me of Assemble Studio and Raumlabor, where I have seen a lot of parallels with your practice. Do you think that if we were to utilise these spaces on a larger scale, we could create a more positive change for the urban realm in Melbourne? Definitely! There has been such a relentless construction boom that I don’t think there’s been much space for it. In this idea of shift, it’s pretty evident we are going to go into a really substantial 27 recession, so I don’t know if that’s going to open
I think we need to remove an idea that a building is finished I find the concept of speed very relevant today. We are speedy in how we work, how we interact, how we receive and process information. How do we negotiate built form at the speed at which humans now live? And how can we give agency to a city that can’t keep up with itself? Cedric Price talks about architecture being too slow to keep up with society, the physical act of building things is too god-damn slow to be responsive which I think is interesting. He’s quite lovely with a lot of ideas about speed, movement and time in architecture. I think one of the faults that architecture makes is the conception that architecture is finished. Even the way a construction project is set up. The hoarding goes up, the building is built, the hoarding goes down and then people occupy. That is a fundamental misunderstanding of a building. It doesn’t ever end. It’s never finished, it’s never complete. In terms of a building being responsive and adaptive I think we need to remove the idea that a building is finished. But that’s tied in with the construction industry because something needs to be finished for a builder to be absolved of their responsibilities. But if buildings could continuously be under construction that would be extraordinarily wonderful.
prioritising the void and not always filling it with an object or building 27
observe, then act
When I look back at everything it’s totally there in an attitude that Joe and I have always had. The really interesting thing with theTesting Grounds site is that its a piece of Crown land and managed by Creative Victoria. It’s in the Arts Precinct and just behind the Arts Centre - it had been empty for about twenty-five years. We started talking to people from Creative Victoria and we were trying to find a mechanism to get access. It was really difficult to do when the status quo for that site was empty, locked up, kind of ignored and almost hidden from the city. In conversation with Creative Victoria, we realised they were spending money each week on the maintenance. They were paying for weed killing, graffiti removal and a security company to come and walk through it. We literally took the maintenance budget, or the caretaking budget, and basically took on a contract to do those jobs at the very beginning. This was the mechanism that got us access to that site - it was this incredibly surgical approach - so caretaking has been there from the beginning in that way. It’s an attitude of daily presence in a site, with a site. As our projects began to almost become curated, we started working with a curator whose one of our core star team now. We came to understand this really important link between the word curator and the word caretaker, the root word is care in both those activities. I’m actually working on a book right now which is called Instructions for Care. It’s just there as a kind of attitude towards people and site. And that’s come from the necessity of having to look after those sites on a daily basis, as well as a kind of duty of care for their futures. We really hope that the work we do informs the futures of these sites.
opportunities or make those things more difficult. I don’t know if these activities are better placed in a society or an economy that’s flourishing and there’s lots of room for excess. Or if this way of working is going to be spurred on by necessity because people literally don’t have anything else to do. I don’t know which way it is going to go. The Raumlabor approach would probably be the latter, this is critical work as opposed to excessive - flourishing work on the fringes of productivity.
see: Hans Ulrich Obrist and Cedric Price: The Conversation Series: Vol. 21
You started just doing these projects and then it led to work with councils and Creative Victoria, but I don’t know any other studios that work like this. I don’t even know if we need to be architects to be doing what we do. We’ve found ourselves managing sites and spaces that other people use and I feel that could be done by others. I’m the only architect in our team and beyond really pragmatic building regulation stuff that’s really important to the work that we do, I’m not doing a lot of architectural design. I’m prodding at architecture from the edges a little bit, there’s a lot of interest in what we do from architects and the architectural profession, but I think I’d struggle to find another architect that would be willing to work the way we work. We’re not designing buildings, we’re occupying buildings and we’re making lots of incremental changes to buildings over time. It’s almost like watching an architectural project in extreme slow motion over a long period of time. These buildings slowly change, there’s not much for an architectural vision to be realised. It’s kind of hard to exist in an industry but also be on the edge - we’ve found a way of doing it but I don’t necessarily know if you could write a rule book on what we are doing because it’s quite... Open Yeah! And it goes in different directions based on different sites. It all ties back into this idea of collective care, stepping out of the way and letting things happen. Do you think, hopefully with this idea of shift, we can move closer towards that? I think the idea of collective is important because it removes the idea of a single author and architecture is obsessed with the single visionary the single brain that thought up an extraordinary form that then was photographed a million times. The idea of a collective approach is important because you’re removing that hierarchy. That idea of moving out of the way is quite important for us and that’s when I often do come back to those ideas and theories of prioritising the void and not always filling it with an object or building. Almost holding back the forces and allowing a space to be protected, allowing a space to be provided to people to use in creative ways and the idea of infrastructure comes in there.
that goes back to the idea of caretaking, we’re here to support as opposed to direct and prescribe 28
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I think as students we definitely get in our own way a lot. The architecture industry as well, with the ego and awards and photos. You obviously practiced in studios before you were registered, how did you navigate this? I sort of did it. I did it like everyone does it. I didn’t hate it, but I was never really motivated to make it my own thing. I had a few opportunities to design things like “do a house, do an interior, a bathroom or a kitchen”. I would do it and I’d be like “great, this will be good” and then I would just think how, “I can’t bear this, this is so bad!” It wasn’t actually this big decision to not do it or to do it, there wasn’t this line in the sand, it kind of just dwindled away. I love decoration though. Siteworks is this big old horrid school building and I love it, I love the clarity of its bones. It’s just such a simple building with its big wide stairwells and corridors - the whole thing is really obvious. There’s no tricks, it’s just this great brick building. We are looking at ways of adaptively changing elements, slowly, it’s only after a couple of years that we’re finding out things to do. Up until now we have cared for that building through decoration we have painted it, we’ve covered it in pot plants and put up posters and there’s been this kind of
I guess I’m prodding at architecture from the edges a little bit domesticity that’s played out in that building, which has really given it its charm and made people feel at home. We talk about this idea of infrastructure with decoration so you almost cut out the middle bit and you have at the very core, the structural needs of the building. Same at Testing Grounds, and then you add this delightful movable feast of decoration. That’s been through necessity of operation, and how we’ve made these spaces feel welcoming to a community. The big agenda at Siteworks is that we’re running what we call a ‘contra model’. We have a group of about twenty-five people now who have a reciprocal relationship with us where they contribute back to Siteworks in lieu of rent. This whole thing started with a person who works with steel. The building needed a whole lot of work done to it in order for us to get access. We extended the balustrade to get them up to code and this allowed us to occupy the upstairs. He also does things like fixes the doors, and builds ramps so we can get disability access into
together
Saxon Street Design and Operations Principles Andrew Clapham & These Are The Projects We Do Together 29
and builds ramps so we can get disability access into the buildings. He was our very first contra and has been instrumental in helping us maintain the building at Siteworks and Testing Grounds. Now we’ve got a graphic designer, a filmmaker, architects, landscape architects, curators, artists - it’s this really wonderful community of contra’s who contribute to the project in ways that aren’t monetary. It also distributes the project’s responsibility to a larger group. This encourages more of a conversation on what the site needs and how a site and its program can be supported through this community.
These first days, and then weeks, that pile up with the leaves of close observation, of daily care, of exposure to the elements, exposure to the sun, the wind, the rain, the too rapid setting of the sun form a bond, a very real connection with us. We start to know you in a way unexpected.
love
- excerpt from Love letter to a project, 2014 www.theprojects.com.au
there forever. The Quarry was about having a longer term sense of what we were doing and being out of the public gaze. It’s a rehabilitation project so it’s doing a very similar thing to the other two projects in that it’s about, through care and maintenance, bringing the site back to something new. At the same time we’re acknowledging that that’s not really possible and it’s always about some other idea about that site. What sort of programs have you been running there? We’ve run a lot of design studios, that was the first thing. We’re currently building facilities there’s nothing there, there wasn’t even a toilet when we first started. We’re basically just trying to build up a materials stock and a budget to build the facilities that enable up to a hundred people to camp there at any one time. Basically it’s going to be for artist residencies, for architectural built projects. Once again, a piece of infrastructure for people to use and there for us to also use with them. Like a platform
You’ve also got The Quarry, which I’m fascinated by, how did that come about, why that site? For us that was a shift, because a lot of the work we were doing was very temporary. Testing Grounds started with a twelve month contract and we worked our guts out. It takes about eight months to build up enough understanding on what you’re trying to do so there’s this time that’s needed to build these projects up, but we’d only be given twelve months and then we’d be given another twelve months and then maybe we’d be given a two year contract. We could never see five years down the track and plan what we were doing in those sites. The Quarry was an opportunity to say, we want to do this on a bigger scale, say over a 25 year period. We purchased The Quarry about five years ago and that was about operating at a different time scale. The irony is, Testing Grounds was meant to be a twelve month project and we’re now about to embark on our eighth year and we’re talking about another two years, it’s just crazy. Siteworks is about to potentially go into contract negotiations for another eight years. It’s what’s called a Trojan horse kind of idea, where the government wants to do these risk-taking projects but to get community buy-in or to be ignored a little bit - which is part of the game - you need to not be threatening to the community around you. They start as these, ‘it’s just going to be twelve months’ and suddenly we are
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Yeah, it’s also a really nice physical manifestation of this idea of a void, it’s very much this big hole in the ground. One of the core things we’re trying to do is not building anything in the base of the quarry, we’re building everything around the edges up high. That idea of holding that space. It’s also questioning the standard business of rehabilitation. Either fill it with rubbish or fill it with material and then cap it and pretend that nothing ever happened there. Or flood it, which is obviously filling it with water. We’re trying to propose an alternative to those approaches as a way of questioning what happens to quarries and mines everywhere. This is a little one though. Yeah I’m picturing a massive quarry It’s big, it’s like a couple of MCG’s That’s huge!
through care and maintenance bringing the site back to something new
I think architecture should be the context as opposed to the subject of what we do
What sort of advice would you give students who feel this uncertainty on where we are in the industry and navigating that post-uni? Well I think architecture should be the context as opposed to the subject of what we do. And when I say architecture I mean the built environment. The constructed, the worlds, the cities, the urban places, the fact that we can make stuff and come up with ideas and imagine possible futures, these are just so wonderful and it’s so important to engage in this critical imagining of a possible future - everyone should just go for it. I think we’re sometimes limited by what we’re given - what we’re told the profession is or what we perceive the industry to be. There’s this phenomenal capacity for all kinds of wonderful things - we just get fed a particular sort of trope and that’s the problem. You can think of a better thing, you might not have to build it all and maybe sometimes building things and actually realising a project is not the end game, there’s lots of other ways.
One of the best compliments I get on a regular basis is when people walk onto one our sites and say ‘what is this place?!’ They don’t get it and they’re kind of annoyed that it’s not really clear. It’s hard to understand where the entrance is, it’s not clear about how you are meant to behave, there’s not all those clues that are usually there in public spaces or civic buildings. It’s like ‘here is where you sit and enjoy a coffee’, and ‘here is where you do this’ - there’s none of that and I think that’s been a little to our detriment in some ways because people feel a bit uncomfortable or a bit exposed sometimes, especially at Testing Grounds, but I say fuck it. If there’s not room for at least one space in the city like that then it’s a problem. We were asked to put up signage and didactic explainers of the project and we’ve always been a bit anti that. A lot of the feedback from artists and the creative community who have used that site are like ‘it sort of feels like I can do anything here’ - people can use the site and there’s no sort of Testing Grounds identity floating in the background. We just get out of the way, we don’t prescribe how the artists should use the site in a way a gallery would conventionally do. That goes back to the idea of caretaking, we’re here to support as opposed to direct and prescribe.
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It’s not about having this set vision about what you want to do and what you want to be, it’s about having an attitude. Exactly! Having a moral compass and using that to navigate the profession I guess. There’s a lot of really wonderful practitioners doing really great projects, it’s not about throwing it all out just because there’s aspects of it that maybe don’t align with how you would want to live or what you think is important. There’s a tend towards trend and aesthetics that is a little bit limiting, but
if a lot of this stuff can be driven by ideas and what you think is important, what better place to exercise those things than in the constructed environment.
care
In an essay by Marina Van Zuylen it mentions how “a city should accommodate slow spots and quiet places for retreat” to become “potential sites for restorative boredom” but “such pockets of silence and attention are however only as good as what we are willing to invest in them” 1 and you’re kind of doing the anti of that. You’re seeing how a site is used and creating a response to that, rather than imposing a prescribed design and expecting people to behave like this.
post human? post climate crisis?
OFFICE BEDROOM
KITCHEN
BATHROOM(s)
MEDIA ROOM LIVING ROOM
TENNIS COURT POOL GYM
STORE/GARAGE
option A: the family home A compelling option in a prized pocket! The position of this enticing, elegant and engaging home is as exciting as the living on offer. Served by a delightful family bathroom featuring clawfoot bath. Includes a fitted theatre room, versatile teen retreat, generous bedrooms and yet another bathroom. 32
COMMUNITY POOL CONSERVATORY
TATTOO PARLOUR
KINDERGARTEN CARPENTRY WORKSHOP CINEMA COMMUNAL KITCHEN
ARTIST STUDIOS
‘RALLY AREA’ PUBLIC PARKING
option B: the collective community A building that moves beyond a simple civic intervention and instead offers spaces to test and experiment where people and program are constantly coming and going. A building always under construction, in flux and uncertain about what it is. 33
SAM TORRE
post political collapse? post shift?
PRODUCTION STUDIO (SOUND)
cyberspace
interplanetary lounge wait for words (arrive) constant forest of meantime quiet stream/creature rhyme thaws, crystallises liquid stalk . . . cyclic light realigns space we inhabit grime that gathers what stays on you when we rub together (does clean always = dirty never) no. warmth opens pores crushed crust pours thru land in morning wearing body costumes she said you’re a peaceful sleeper didn’t see the dreams try, escape, conjugate jolted breaths glide down fluorescent depths hologram limb flickers around waist starlit suitcase carries new ways to test ‘greet the day like you would a friend’ but how do you greet a friend (the shadows dapple, bend) where do we depart and
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how’s iso?
LOU VERGA 35
is sound forever?
everythingness Is this a hotel? Am I asleep? I like this more than I remember enjoying staying at hotels. I can see my breath. Can bears undo zips? I am in Memu, Taiki, Hokkaido. It is -8 degrees celcius, 10pm. I am taking part in an overnight rereading of the characteristics of place. I can feel my heart slowing, however that usually happens as I fall asleep.. unless I already am asleep. Am I cold? I should be able to answer that- no, I dont think I am.. cold that is.. This great expanse, the sharp stillness. The frozen stars. the dry leaves. My senses are ever so slightly impaired. But whiskey can do that. It doesnt usually pace my dexterity in this manner though.. ok, maybe I am cold. Is this the massive outside? It felt massive today. It felt scary today.. how would I survive the evening? Maybe I would stay awake all night? Or maybe I should try to sleep as long as possible.. like a bear.. bears hibernate, dont they? Bears.. is ‘shoo’ the same in every language? Am I alone, with the frosted grass and icy paddock fence? I certainly don’t feel alone. I dont need to collect wood to make a fire, to eat a fish that I did not catch. I do not need to snare a rabbit, to skin to sew some moccasins, to walk the fields collecting wood.. for the fire that I do not need to make.
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present
The wood was prechopped.. the fire pit was predug. The fish had been precaught/ dragnetted. The foam mattress had been pressed, cut and prerolled out awaiting my horizontality. My boots have been precobbled.. Come to think of it, the one thing that is up to me.. my one task.. to fall asleep, has even been aided by the slowing effects of japanese whiskey..The job has been done for me. Or maybe I misunderstood exactly what my job was. I rouse however at around 1:30am with the energy of a child on Christmas morning, I am very aware there is movement across the field. I have left my arm outside of the sleeping bag, and now it definitely feels like im in the middle of a -8 degree icy field at 1:30am.. alone now. The sounds have changed. I cant put my finger exactly on what. Things have become louder.. or quieter. There are hoof steps, like a light horse, are there deers here? Breathing.
Daylight.
Now it is running.. or more like.. jumping. Its not a gallop.. there is an ambient hum, a consisntent rustle, a crunching leaf, a cracking twig. It is a symphony. There is an orchestra. Somehow an entire symphonic orchestra in the middle of a field. A vast expanse of nothingness.. but of everythingness. JACK STIRLING 37
A TERRITORIAL APPROACH
“think universal, act local” - Bill Gammage, Biggest Estate on Earth (Allen & Unwin 2012)
IN DISCUSSION WITH JONO WARE
Working between Melbourne and Northern NSW, Jono Ware is founder and director of Ware Architects. With a practice that addresses the reciprocal relationship between urban and regional conditions, Jono’s work embraces both the immediate and territorial context of site and place. Jono has a strong background in research through teaching at RMIT University in both the Masters of Landscape Architecture and Architecture courses, and being a team leader in RMIT’s d_lab. He generously gave his time to discuss architecture, landscape and the bush.
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opens up into that reinstated territory. It’s also looking at broader overlay and environmental conditions. A current project up in Byron Bay which is quite a large site, and has multiple layers of environmental zones JONO WARE - My initial question in a on the property - some are wetland zones, some are project is how can it engage in a positive sense to its rural agricultural zones. On the one hand these layers environment - its landscape. As a process I look at limit the possibility of what you can do on the site a broader territorial pattern - a pattern of ecologies while on the other hand they present an opportunity that can inform a site and a landscape strategy that to try and engage with these overlays that have been runs in parallel with an architectural outcome. There’s put in place for conservation reasons. To direct a a couple of simple but critical things that help my project towards custodianship through architecture practice and my idea of architecture evolve. I try to and landscape design has a great potential to have be objectively critical of what’s necessary. When long lasting and even generational impacts on it’s people want a project, but there’s a potentially usable context. existing building, then that should be used first. Renovating can be more expensive than knocking down It’s not your land but you’re essentially and rebuilding and that shows just how flawed the construction industry is - how can knocking down and looking after it and managing it for rebuilding an existing building with all the footings and future prosperity through a landscape materials, be cheaper than renovating? The other proposition, rather than just keeping side is to set up landscape strategies and intervenyour little protection zone around tions that are giving a net gain to the space around that, rather than a net negative consequence. These yourself. are simple things like reducing large concrete slabs which have a long term negative effect on the ground The client’s already regenerating part of ecology, and the potential of that ground to soak up this agricultural landscape by reinstating local rainwater and create possible growth in the future. Trying forest species - it’s been a dairy farm throughout the to make architecture a little bit lighter than is typical. last century - and inserting small bits of infrastructure SAM TORRE - A reciprocal approach between the natural and built underpins your practice - can you talk to this?
to set up landscape strategies and interventions that are giving a net gain to the space around that, rather than a net negative consequence
The idea of the house is relevant more now than ever. You work between coastal NSW and Melbourne, what’s your perspective on the role of the house and its relationship with its immediate and broader site?
How do you approach or address these parallels between urban and territorial conditions in your work? I try to engage in landscape design as much as architectural design. Not to diminish the role of the landscape architect but I try to push into that territory. I’m not a horticulturalist so I can’t be that scientific, but I begin with a specification of all the species that are endemic to that area and work from there. Also how those landscape conditions, or ecological conditions could then begin to be drawn internally into the project. Whether that’s physically internally, the break up of volumes or how space 39
It’s fundamental in the way you interact daily with your context - the small rituals you play out on a day to day basis. If the house enables some shift in the way you interact with your space and your context, then that kind of triggers a whole knock on effect of rituals and practices that you end up partaking in for the rest of your life. As an architect, the primary agency for change is through the domestic house - typically. It’s not the most exciting way of enacting change, but it’s the one that most small practices are engaged in. The smallness of it multiplied over the scale of the industry becomes really important.
Trying to make architecture a little bit lighter than is typical. JONO WARE with SAM TORRE
architecture in dialogue with landscape
like lookout towers, bird hides and pathways through the wetland areas will enable more regular monitoring and care to happen in the future.
reciprocity
Photo Jono Ware Mollymook NSW, 2019 @ware_architects
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You have an extensive background in research - what sort of role has that had in establishing dialogue and place and your attitude towards architecture?
If the house enables some shift in the way you interact with your space and your context, then that kind of triggers a whole knock on effect of rituals and practices that you end up partaking in the rest of your life
You only need to do a little bit of reading and investigating to realise that the bush now is not what the bush is supposed to be
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renewal and regeneration
Even though my history in research is not that long in comparison to other people, I’ve had a lot more time and energy to put into these fields than a typical studio allows for. At the moment I’m not teaching, I’m just working on my practice and I do find that I have limited time to engage in that way of thinking. I’ve been fortunate enough to have many years post graduation in dealing with an ongoing research project and it’s set up these ways of thinking or understanding a site that I don’t think you would have time to do otherwise. The academic research The Architect’s Declare movement and running of a studio is an important aspect in demonstrates an acknowledgement of our industry’s shaping a nuanced trajectory to an office. If you go contribution to climate change, however is it potenstraight into producing, you don’t really get the opportially just a way to absolve guilt rather than fighting for tunity to think of those things. Many of the practices structural change and asking how and why we build? I look at for inspiration or that I find interesting have had some engagement with academia or research. The nature of architecture in reality It’s also embedded in my training with Baracco + doesn’t have a positive effect on the environment. It’s Wright as many of their projects that aren’t necesreally good that people have the intention to enact sarily built outcomes are integrated into this research change, but for me it’s more of a marketing ploy agenda. Being able to link this to a building practice is and a bandaid affect rather than an industry change the ultimate goal in order to allow your projects to still movement. Many of the practices would have signed be progressive intellectually and progressing a larger up for the right intention and might be doing some research agenda, which in my case is landscape and positive things, but a lot of the architects involved are environment relationships. probably not doing small things like renovating and are instead building a new two million dollar project which has a massive embodied energy footprint. You have to take these movements with a grain of salt. It’s also related to how the industry rewards practices for being sustainable. The narrow mindedness of sustainability is exacerbated through particular movements like sustainability awards and Architects Declare - I don’t sit comfortably with things like that, so I tend not to engage with them. My opinion is that they should remove the sustainability category completely and that all nominated projects in all categories should be reaching a minimum sustainability threshold. Otherwise it’s not going to change We just had these devastating fires and anything. then entered into the pandemic and are going into an extremely substantial recession, could you talk to the ideas of renewal and regeneration in relation to your How have you negotiated working in this work? context of immediate outcomes and production and I had a large project in Castlemaine at this much slower timescale of the landscape? the end of last year and the clients have decided to downscale and renovate. They had the possibility to Architecture is a difficult industry to develop the site into three separate houses and have remain economically viable in. I think that the way instead decided to enact our first proposal which you might try to manage a practice which engages is a landscape rehabilitation and renovation of the with a sense of landscape scales and time is more of an ongoing interest and an ongoing influence that existing building. When you spend a lot of time in your home you appreciate how important it should slowly informs each project as your knowledge or be to your everyday living rather than just becoming understanding continues to grow. You need projects which just service the bread and butter but that’s not a cooking and sleeping space. Probably the limited economic climate is going to lend itself to renovating to stay that they can’t also have influence.
collective care
I think that’s a good opportunity rather than a negative thing to come across. In relation to bushfire impacts on the coast, I think it’s really interesting to question if it is still a viable notion of the Australian psyche to have a bush shack anymore? Certainly it was in the past, but because of the change in ecology it’s kind of scary now. Not only because of the building industry regulation that will inform how a bush shack evolves, but that enormity of what will inevitably happen to any bush site along the east coast unless something drastic changes. To firstly have that existential crisis, and now everyone being forced into their urban condition is reinstating this idea that we need to move to the bush, in ignorance of the first event. People are going to be reaching out for that coastal shack and rural location for their primary or secondary dwelling. That reciprocity between an urban and regional condition is going to be impacted by this pandemic state because people are going to want to have their cake and eat it too. Keep your jobs but go and live somewhere else. Those regional communities have been so devastated by the fires and there’s a challenge to try and renew these towns while retaining their feeling of remoteness but also creating architecture and urban situations that are safe. I’m not sure how you do that though, because the last season clearly shows that you just can’t make it safe.
That reciprocity between an urban and regional condition is going to be impacted by this pandemic state You only need to do a little bit of reading and investigating to realise that the bush now is not what the bush is supposed to be. People’s protectionism around the bush and mis-managing of it is creating very limited opportunity for change. You’ve got the left wing, who are greenies politically but probably haven’t done any of that ecological reading or background research to realise that the things they think are beautiful, untouched pristine bits of forest are actually sick and unhealthy swathes of unmanaged bushland.
I don’t know how you can educate generations of colonial ideology around that.
Do you ever feel a sense of pessimism towards climate change and how we interact with the landscape? I’ve been a bit cynical about it all over the last couple of years but I think there’s hope that people who aren’t typically greenies or lefties, do actually care about the Australian bush as an embedded identity in our national psyche. Gradually, over time as we might broadly become aware that 42
the things they think are beautiful, untouched pristine bits of forest are actually sick and unhealthy bits of unmanaged bushland. the bush is not in a healthy state, people may begin to agree to enacting managerial change over the environment. Last summer there was a lot of media discourse around indigenous land management and fire stick farming - these times of crises bring opportunities to discuss it at the fore. So many people were threatened on the east coast of australia, tens of thousands of people. Thousands of people lost their homes. It had a massive, massive impact on Australia and yet covid has totally transformed our economy. I don’t see how those things stack up next to each other. That’s the priority of our social-capitalist state. Economy is numbers 1 through 10 and everything else is below that. I guess that’s why we feel this hopelessness but you’ve just got to learn to navigate that Yeah and just keep persisting, not just in your bubble but continue to try and engage those discussions in your projects, even if you end up just doing one project a year over a lifetime. At least that’s a lifetime of places, not just people, but places that may have enacted some little, but hopefully meaningful change.
being surrounded by conditions which will likely not change in our lifetime or perhaps even further lifetimes and become engaged in looking after that space.
Photo Jono Ware Narrawallee Beach, 2019 @ware_architects
small change, big picture
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INFRASTRUCTURE
A MAP OF THE WORLD IN LAND MASS COLLECTIVE
“PRIMITIVE”
exchange
WISDOM
CARETAKING
SYMBIOTIC
EXPERIENCE
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PRIVATE BENEFIT
A MAP OF THE WORLD IN WEALTH MASS INDIVIDUAL
INFORMATION
EXTRACTIVE
ARROGANCE
SAM TORRE 45
buy a house, buy a car, buy a lifestyle
“MODERN” VESTED INTEREST
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I’m right, you’re wrong
TURTLES HAVE A LONGER LIFE SPAN WITH SLOW AND METABOLISM. TURTLES HAVE MOVEMENTS A LONGER LIFE SPAN WITH SLOW
MOVEMENTS AND METABOLISM. INSTANT GRATIFICATION IMPAIRS BOTH THE MICRO AND MACRO, THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE INSTANT GRATIFICATION IMPAIRS BOTH THE COLLECTIVE. MICRO AND MACRO, THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE
COLLECTIVE. INDIGENOUS AGRICULTURE RECOGNIZES THE INDIGENOUS AGRICULTURE RECOGNIZES THE SIGNIFICANCE OF NOMADIC LIFESTYLE IN ORDER TO ALLOWOF TIME FOR THE LAND TOIN REVIVE. SIGNIFICANCE NOMADIC LIFESTYLE ORDER
TO ALLOW TIME FOR THE LAND TO REVIVE. LANDS ARE DRAINED FROM THE CRAVING TO LANDS ARE DRAINED FROM THE CRAVING TO BUILD.
BUILD.
MATERIALS ARE DEPLETED TO CREATE MACHINES MATERIALSTHAT ARE PROMISE DEPLETEDSPEED TO CREATE MACHINES OF THE DIVINE? THAT PROMISE SPEED OF THE DIVINE?
GLOAL GLOBALWARMING WARMINGISISTHE THERESULT RESULTOF OFRESOURCE RESOURCE DEPRAVATION? DEPRAVATION? QUALITY “HOW QUALITYOF OFPRODUCTS PRODUCTSARE AREVALUED VALUED UNDER UNDER “HOW FAST, HOW SOON AND HOW QUICK”. FAST, HOW SOON AND HOW QUICK”. THE THEANTHROPOCENE ANTHROPOCENEACCELERATES ACCELERATES THE THE SPEED SPEED OF EXTINCTION. OF EXTINCTION.
HALF OF US ON OUR KNEES PRAYING FOR AN HALF OF US ON OUR KNEES PRAYING FOR AN ANSWER. ANSWER. THE OTHERON ONTHEIR THEIRKNEES KNEESSCAVENGING SCAVENGING FOR FOR THE OTHER DIRT. DIRT. PATIENCE VIRTUE. PATIENCE IS ISAA DECLINING DEADLINE VIRTUE. ININ ORDER FOR ORDER FORUS USTO TOSURVIVE, SURVIVE,WE WEMUST MUSTRETRACE RETRACE OUR STEPS TO A TIME OF FORGOTTEN PATIENCE. OUR STEPS TO A TIME OF FORGOTTEN PATIENCE. TURTLES TURTLESKNOW KNOWWHAT WHATWE WEDON’T. DON’T. THEY THEY LIVE LIVE LONGER BECAUSE THEY TAKE THEIR TIME LIVING. LONGER BECAUSE THEY TAKE THEIR TIME LIVING. YUCHEN GAO 47
slow down
TECHNOLOGY TECHNOLOGYISISBORN BORNFROM FROMOUR OUR NEED NEED OF OF IMMEDIATE ADVANCEMENT. IMMEDIATE ADVANCEMENT.
logging on
‘It is now easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.’ SLAVOJ ZIZEK + FREDERICK JAMESON, Capitalist Realism
1. The mathematician Blaise Pascal supposedly had what we think was a form of agoraphobia (fear of open spaces). After being struck by a carraige in his youth, he constantly saw a yawning abyss to his left side.
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end of the escape Nowhere is this more true than in this current moment of global panic, immediately post-fires, and pre-mass quarantine. The evidence provided by this current crisis is clear. The structures that neoliberal capitalism have put in place since the deregulation of the eighties are woefully ill equipped to deal with the effects of COVID-19. Mass casualisation, the cre-ation of a new class of precariat, and the disinte-gration of the social safety nets designed to deal with these kind of crises are all evident, as they have been for years. In this kind of situation the presence of the abyss is constant. Like Pascal, we carry our abyss with us wherever we go1. The younger we are, the more casual our employment, or the more precarious our employment, the more we recognise the abyss that threatens us should we fall.
To analyze the modern situation of production, or to speculate on future propositions and avoid the material fact of labour is an abject deriliction of our duty as commentators.
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The crises evident in the world do not have architectural solutions, architecture is a solution come too late to a problem already past solving. The crises evident in architecture are not based on, or having to choose between a ‘critical theory’ based approach, a ‘technology’ based approach, and a ‘reality’ based approach as these essays might suggest. Capital, through it’s trading of ‘futures’ has a manifestly realised future. The philosopher and occasional meth-addled racist Nick Land went so far as to suggest that in capitalism, the ‘non-actual has effective currency’.Capital self-reinforces it’s future, and every element of capital conspires towards a position whereby it’s non-actual is increasingly subsidised into the wider and increasingly virtual body of capital. The technology of architecture is not what causes it to be in crises. A revolution in digital technology will not materially change the modes of economy that cause the processes of architecture to begin. The crisis of architecture is only a subsidary of the crisis of the world. Capital’s monopoly on the future is only sure as long as the foundations of what we consider to be real are maintained. The actions taken by state bodies in the wake of the pandemic are beginning to demonstrate that the mythology of capitalism is flawed. A trillion dollars can be poured into the American stock market without a single cry of ‘but how might we pay for it’, health insurance copays can be suspended, ghost flights continue to take place only because capitalism has created its own engine of perpetual motion, obliterating the idea that the market is the most efficient way to respond to demand. The conspiracy architecture, and creative production, must engage in is that of demonstrating the ‘non-durability of the real’. What does an architecture that demonstrates the unreality of the future look like. It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism, so before we consider the end of capitalism, we must first consider the end of the world. That is our conspiracy.
JACK MURRARY
logging off
It is why the idea that perpetual growth is both good and possible is so egregious. In ‘Automated Landscapes and the Human Dream of Relentlessness’, Strelka Mag proffers such questionable phrases as human ‘uptime’, while talking positively of eliminating ‘risks, unions, and failure’ all in service of some questionably defined ‘human dream of relentlessness’. The article describes a situation of modern pro-duction, predicated on 24/7 cycles of constant ‘uptime’, without ever delving into what this production’s psychological and material effect is. They uncritically discuss the possibility of technology to ‘rapidly scale up operations and business’ maintaining ‘growth as the only constant’. They speak of the ‘delicate labour’ required by agriculture as performed most often by ‘migrant workers’ mon-itored in ‘real time by RFID scanners’. With performance evaluation occurring con-stantly, and almost certainly no ongoing guarantee of employment, the psycho-logical impact of this precarious, surveilled work, is almost certainly negative. The way that Strelka Mag seems to avoid this is a matter of concern. The almost romantic way in which Strelka seem to discuss the ‘beauty and crudeness’ of these automated landscapes gives rise to the question of inhabitation. For a journal of an institute of design, the uncritical acceptance of inhabitation with a kind of ‘what can we do’ shoulder shrug means this article, instead of providing lucid analysis, seems instead to be a kind of vacant portrait of a condition. It is just depicting in aestheti-cized ways real issues with modern modes of production. It is not only Strelka that avoid the psychological impact of modern production on the pre-carious labour of marginalised human beings. The essay on Perspecta, written by Marcus Carter and Christopher Macinkoski displays a similar kind of ethical disregard for the labour of design, the labour of those involved in executing it, and the modern condition of precar-ization. While it was written several years ago now (2011), I wonder how much of their It is not only Strelka that avoid the psychological impact of modern production on the pre-carious labour of marginalised human beings. The essay on Perspecta, written by Marcus Carter and Christopher
Macinkoski displays a similar kind of ethical disregard for the labour of design, the labour of those involved in executing it, and the modern condition of precar-ization. While it was written several years ago now (2011), I wonder how much of their diag-nosis would remain the same. It spends page upon page hitting theory with a stick, while retaining much of the strange crutch of ‘objective research’ that their view of contemporary architectural production demands.v It evacuates the object of architecture to be the technical demands of ‘innovative solutions’ and ‘objective testing’, rather than engaging with critical theory as something to integrate with the wider body of architecture in a subject-oriented way. Architecture is inhabited and it is through that inhabitation it is defined. There is no circumstance in which architecture is an isolated object in the world, perfect in form and reason - and it can certainly never be an ‘objective’ construction. Either as a materialist object (the timescales involved in archi-tecture do not lend themselves to panacea-like fixes for social problems), or as an aesthetic one (there is no world in which an aesthetic object can predict all responses to it objectively).
house, 2019 This was an exhibition that provided a mutual ground between diverse creatives, facilitated by the idea of the ‘house’. Curated by art and architecture students, the project explored a range of creative input to investigate the metaphorical concepts of a house and its inhabitants.
house First Site Gallery 344 Swanston St April 9-18, 2019 Joseph Fonti Lou Verga Rubi Dinardo Sam Torre Tori Dinardo Will Dundon
The project was curated by Rubi Dinardo and myself.Collaboration has always been at the centre of both of our practices so we brought together a group of creatives compiled of both family and old classmates spanning ten years in age. Joseph Fonti (artist), Lou Verga (writer), Tori Dinardo (interior design student) and Will Dundon (musician). Each was allocated a room of the house as a prompt for their work. Reflecting on their personal experience and imagination, physical and ephemeral ideas were explored in response to their place in the home. We asked those involved and viewers alike to reposition the expectation that objects define a space, and instead consider how memories, stories and shared experience are in fact what shape a home.
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e, 2019 (2020?) post-documentation for a project come and gone --
se, 2019 (2020?) post-documentation for project and &gone -- house, 2019 (2020?) post-documen house was not a possible withoutcome nonna carmella angelo dinardo
documentation for a project come and gone -- house, 2019 (2020?) post-doc
SAM TORRE
use, 2019 (2020?) post-documentation for a project come and gone -- hou
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malto-milks scotch fingers? (2020?) post-documentation for a project come andor gone -- house, 2019 (2020?) post-documentation
cumentation for a project come and gone -- house, 2019 (2020?) post-docu-
e, 2019 (2020?) post-documentation for a project come and gone --
se, 2019 (2020?) post-documentation for a ghost project come gone -- house, 2019 (2020?) post-documen branches making and ghost patterns
documentation for a project come and gone -- house, 2019 (2020?) post-doc
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It will never be able to accurately
Last week I posted a series of images on Instagram of this project. This comprised of photos which were mostly vacant of any human occupation. In a way, this act contradicted the foundation of the project. I’m not condemning the action of photography as a tool for documentation and the necessary role it plays in communicating the delivery of a project to a wider audience. However a photograph can never compare with experience. Similarly, a book or a film review can never be equal to the act of viewing that item yourself and forming an independent opinion. Perhaps if you saw the exhibition you would disagree with our proposal entirely? Or consider the language used to describe it not represented in its execution?
emulate walking through the gallery, and experiencing its interactive elements. A zine (that quickly evolved into a book) was produced as a tool for navigation. It compiled the images from both of our personal film archives which had acted as the catalyst for our concept. These pages document where we grew up, those we had lived our adolescent lives beside and our homesaway-from-home. We were leaving our teen years and reflecting on what consistently grounded us throughout this time. Although the North-eastern Suburbs of Melbourne and the walls we have lived between have shaped us immensely, it has been the friends and family we have shared these spaces with that defines this era.
The act of seeing, of reading, of listening - of physically embodying a space in that specific time is perhaps the purest way of understanding (or not understanding) a project. In a temporary one like this, and in a world obsessed with optics, how do we document it? The act of docu mentation translates the project into something else. Almost like a copy, something that had existed but has been warped in its digital context.
Following on from Megan Patty’s words of the “book as a vessel”, our book is perhaps the only artefact left of this project. The book has no photos of the exhibition, none of the artwork we made and not a single image of First Site Gallery. The gallery context was a place to facilitate an idea, a container for the temporary. The book however lives, and its photos, poems and descriptive text of each space in the exhibition remains as the remnant of a project that has come and gone.
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when you get home yeah? (2020?) post-documentation for a projectmessage comemeand gone -- house, 2019 (2020?) post-documentation
cumentation for a project come and gone -- house, 2019 (2020?) post-docu-
use, 2019 (2020?) post-documentation for a project come and gone -- hou
For architects, a large portion of time is spent documenting a project. Crucial in communicating an idea to a client, builder or local council. It is a process - conventional and essential. But is the photograph the only way to document a project after its completion? After the tape is pulled off? Is it the most effective? What if we consider post-documentation as a method for communicating a temporary project? It’s common to see renders and detailed drawings of how people can occupy a proposed space, what happens if we utilise this technique in documenting a place that no longer exists becoming a kind of manual of how the space was used? An alternative to conventional documentation, but utilising conventional documentation as a medium.
Could this extend the role of the review and fuel ongoing research and development? Or is this simply a desperate attempt to hold on to the past, an inability to move on from old work?
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e, 2019 (2020?) post-documentation for a project come and gone --
se, 2019 (2020?) post-documentation for a project come and gone -- house, 2019 (2020?) post-documen hand-cutting and printing zines in b100 basement
documentation for a project come and gone -- house, 2019 (2020?) post-doc
metaphysics and target headhpones (2020?) post-documentation for a project come and gone -- house, 2019 (2020?) post-documentation
cumentation for a project come and gone -- house, 2019 (2020?) post-docu-
use, 2019 (2020?) post-documentation for a project come and gone -- hou
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e, 2019 (2020?) post-documentation for a project come and gone --
se, 2019 (2020?) post-documentation a project come and yourself, gone and -- house, 2019 a place that requires you to befor immersed in solitude, to look within for your mind to travel(2020?) post-documen
documentation for a project come and gone -- house, 2019 (2020?) post-doc
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all decided it was best to-go house, home (2020?) post-documentation for a project we come and gone 2019 (2020?) post-documentation
cumentation for a project come and gone -- house, 2019 (2020?) post-docu-
use, 2019 (2020?) post-documentation for a project come and gone -- hou
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METHOD FOR PROMOTING BEHAVIOR CHANGE THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA MEDIATION
monitor me, monitor you
PREDICTING REAL WORLD CONNECTIONS BASED ON INTERACTIONS IN SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEM
AND SYSTEMS FOR METHODS G TARGETIN EMENTS ADVERTIS BASED ON PRODUCT LIFETIMES
APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR MANAGING RISK BASED ON PREDICTION ON SOCIAL WEB MEDIA
ANALYZING CONSUME R BEHAVIO R INVOLVING USE OF SOCIAL NE TWORKING BENEFITS ASSOCIAT ED WITH CON TENT
PREDICTION OF USER RESPONSE TO INVITATIONS IN A SOCIAL NETWORK SYSTEM BASED ON KEYWORDS IN THE USERS PROFILE
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ASSOCIATING
DRIVING NEA RBY VEHICLE IN A SAFE MO DE AND PREDICTING REAL TIME PRICE USING VEHICLE SO CIAL NETWORK A ND METHOD
SENTIMENT WITH OBJECTS ON SOCIAL MEDIA
METHOD AND APPARATUS OF ANALYZING SOCIAL NETWORK DATA TO IDENTIFY A FINANCIAL MARKET TREND
TRAFFIC
sociality.today is a website created by artist Paolo Cirio. It documents patents (the one’s available to the public) that companies use to monitor, manipulate, predict and control humans on the internet. The exposure of this complex bed of technology demonstrates the depth of ownership large corporations have on us. The following is an excerpt from the website that the public is encouraged to interact with;
The documentary form of this artwork aims to shed light on contemporary mechanisms of social control by showing evidence of complex technological systems and their roles in enabling addiction, opinion formation, deceptions, discrimination, and profiling. sociality.today examines the concepts of social bubbles, algorithmic bias, amplification of misinformation, behavior modification, tech addiction, and corporate surveillance.
METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PERSONAL CREDIT RATING USING BY SOCIAL NETWORK
visit www.sociality.today to see the entire body of work
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PAOLO CIRIO
sliding into too many dm’s
RELATIONSHIP IDENTIFICATION L BASED ON EMAI
UV 400+!!!
be speedy 60
you’re not working enough
don’t be bored work more update update update look over here don’t look over there don’t reflect focus externalise don’t overthink think less update more scroll scroll scroll
SAM TORRE 61
CORONAVIRUS THE GUARDIAN
what
JORDAN HALSALL “CONCRETE ANGEL” DIANE INC
METAHAVEN “FIELD REPORT” RMIT DESIGN HUB GALLERY
JACK SELF “CONTACTLESS” REAL REVIEW 4
MATTHEW SLEETH “A DRONE OPERA” LYONS HOUSE MUSEUM
CONEPIECE “UNDAYSAY ESHAY (MIX)” SOUNDCLOUD
TOURIST
NOWNESS.COM
STUDIO GHIBLI MY NEIGHBOUR TOTORO
JACK SELF “CAFE SOCIETY” REAL REVIEW 3
ARCHITECTS DECLARE au.architectsdeclare.com TERRAIN.EARTH/ DIGITAL-DIRECTORY
MARTEN KUIJPERS & LUDO GROEN “AUTOMATED LANDSCAPES AND THE HUMAN DREAM OF RELENTLESSNESS” STRELKA MAG HOUSE FIRST SITE GALLERY
BENJAMIN H. BRATTON “THE NEW NORMAL” 62 PRESS STRELKA
HET NIEUWE INSTITUUTE “ANTHROPOMETRIC DATA” WORK, BODY, LEISURE
BEATRIZ COLOMINA & MARK WIGLEY “HOMO-CELLULAR” ARE WE HUMAN?
MARINA VAN ZUYLEN “A PROPER OCCUPATION” WORK, BODY, LEISURE
DAVID PLAISANT & JAMES BINNING (ASSEMBLE STUDIO) COLLECTIVE THINKING ARCHITECTURE & ANTHROPOCENE PODCAST, MILAN TRIENNALE THEPROJECTS. COM.AU
ANNE HELEN PETERSEN, DEREK THOMPSON & EZRA KLEIN “WORK AS IDENTITY, BURNOUT AS LIFESTYLE” THE EZRA KLEIN SHOW
JANE HALL & BEN STUART “EP 1 - ASSEMBLE STUDIOS” CREATE MORE PODCAST
OMA/REM KOOLHAAS “TYPICAL PLAN” S,M,L,XL
where
LIAM YOUNG MACHINE LANDSCAPES (INTRODUCTION)
JULIA WATSON LO-TEK DESIGN BY RADICAL INDIGENISM JACK SELF & OFFICE THE POLITICS OF PUBLIC SPACE
“THE CAPTURE” ABC
MATTHEW STEWART “AMAZON URBANISM: PATENTS AND THE TOTALIZING WORLD OF BIG TECH FUTURES” FAILED ARCHITECTURE 63
BRUNO LATOUR DOWN TO EARTH, POLITICS IN THE NEW CLIMATE REGIME
currently in transit
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