Martha Rosler, still from Semiotics of the Kitchen (1975)
A PRAXIOGRAPHY – maintaining architecture Documentations of Housework, elective seminar course School of Architecture KTH (autumn 2019). / Catharina Gabrielsson
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A PRAXIOGRAPHY – maintaining architecture Documentations of Housework. School of Architecture KTH (autumn 2019) The implications of “work” in architecture range from labour and practice to aesthetics; from the labour of others, to what architects do, to the identity and legitimacy of the (art)work. Moreover, how buildings work (and what happens to them after they’re built) stands in a particularly complex relationship to an architectural conception based on values of originality, intentionality and permanence. Through its many ramifications, “work” operates as a conceptual lens to evince the hidden domains of architecture that, although mostly unspoken, are of seminal importance for maintaining the discipline. The praxiography presented here* is the outcome of fieldwork activities carried out by participants in the elective seminar course Housework held during the autumn of 2019. Using a variety of methods – on site observations, interviews, mappings, and shadowing techniques – students have explored practices that are auxiliary to and engage with architecture in different ways. From the construction site to the everyday practices of care, from garbage collection to window cleaning and the routines of real estate agents, the documentations presented here offer insights into professional domains rarely discussed in architectural terms. They encompass skills and pride, social hierarchies, language divisions, structural divides and opportunism, along with long working days, irregular schedules and well-established routines. Reading architecture through the lens of these practises, the boundaries of architecture begin to dissolve. Established through habits of mind and the disciplination of thought, these boundaries are what prevent us from understanding architecture in a wider context; a context that both provides the conditions for architecture and constitutes the ground for its ultimate meaning and use. Together these fieldwork investigations allow us to question the limits of architecture, where it begins and ends, and how it’s actually made. By looking into the different forms of labour involved with producing, maintaining and safeguarding architectural space, and thus architectural values – not merely in terms of prolonging the lifespan of a building’s physical materiality, but also in terms of how it feels and appears – these studies target the very core of how architecture makes its claims as an artform. Ever since the emergence of the modern concept of space in late 19th century German aesthetics, the emotional capacity of architecture – the experience of space – has remained central for its inclusion into the categories of art. Yet far too little attention has been devoted to how spatial experience depends on the care of others. As architects we have perhaps accommodated to the idea of “the creative user” as a maker of space, but have ignored the caretaker and the cleaner. Catharina Gabrielsson * The term praxiography was coined by Annmarie Mol (2002) and is linked to a distinct way of theorising about practice that starts out from the recognition that theory and practice are inseparable from one another.
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Course literature Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2nd ed., 1998) chapters II–IV Pier Vittorio Auerli, “Form and Labour: Toward a history of abstraction”, in Peggy Deamer (ed.), The Architect as Worker: immaterial Labor, the Creative Class, and the Politics of Design (Bloomsbury, 2015) Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine, Koolhaas Houselife film (2006) and book (2013) Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2000 [1972]) excerpt Steward Brand, How Buildings Learn: what happens to them after they’re built (1994) Stephen Cairns and Jane M. Jacobs, Buildings must die: a perverse view of architecture (MIT Press, 2014) Ben Campkin, “Architecture and Dirt: introduction” in Ben Campion and Paul Dobraszcyk (eds) Architecture and Dirt, special issue of Journal of Architecture 12(4) 2007 Peggy Deamer, “Work”, in Peggy Deamer (ed.), The Architect as Worker: immaterial Labor, the Creative Class, and the Politics of Design (Bloomsbury, 2015) Nancy Fraser, “Contradictions of Capital and Care”, New Left Review 100, 2016: 99-117 Catharina Gabrielsson, “Housework”, Nordic Journal of Architecture 3:2:2012 and “The critical potential of housework”, H. Frichot, H. Runting and C. Gabrielsson (eds.) Architecture and Feminisms: Ecologies, Technologies, Economies (London: Routledge 2017) Lacaton and Vassal, “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Architecture as Resource”, German Pavilion, 13th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia 2012. Shannon Mattern, “Maintenance and Care: a working guide to the repair of rust, dust, cracks and corrupted code in our cities, our homes and our social relations”, Places (November 2018), placesjournal.org Katheleen Anne McHugh, “The Metaphysics of Housework: Patricia Gruben's The Central Character”, in A. Ballantyne (ed.) What is Architecture? (London and New York: Routledge, 2002) Helen Molesworth, “House Work and Art Work”, October Vol 92, 2000: 71-97 Peg Rawes, “Architectural ecologies of care”, in Peg Rawes (ed.), Relational Architectural Ecologies (Routledge 2013) Hilary Sample, Maintenance Architecture (Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England: The MIT Press, 2016)
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Teresa Stoppani, “Dust Revolutions. Dust, informe, architecture (notes for a reading of Dust in Bataille), Architecture and Dirt, special issue of Journal of Architecture 12(4) 2007, p. 437-447 Stephen Graham and Nigel Thrift, “Out of Order: Understanding repair and maintenance”, Theory, Culture and Society 24 (3) Websites and material online The City as a Project Research Collective. Architecture and Labour: Part 1 (2017) http://thecityasaproject.org/2017/11/architecture-and-labour-part-1/ https://m-i-n-t.se/om/ Martha Rosler, Semiotics of the kitchen (1975) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuZympOIGC0 Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine interview, “The emotion of the space”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVmk5D61_3k Koolhaas (excerpt of interview) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_uQYZO2MOk Rotor, Brussels http://rotordb.org/en Who Builds Your Architecture? (WBYA?) http://whobuilds.org, https://www.thepossible.com/ethical-social-political-questions-around-architecture-globalisation/
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Architect´s office in Stockholm Freya Tigerschiöld & Johanna Lundqvist Studyvisit 23/10/2019, 9am to 3pm, Katsan, White Arkitekter´s Stockholm office
“I would like to design and draw more details.” Geoff, architect
White Arkitekter was founded in 1951 with their main office in Göteborg, Sweden. Today they have about 900 employees and 13 offices in Scandinavia and the UK. The company is employee- owned with about 600 employees as shareholders and 120 partners. The Stockholm office, called Katsan, was designed by White themselves in 2003 and now houses around 300 architects, engineers, communicators, administrators and others. The building consists of 6 floors with terrace, kitchen and coference room on top. The office is divided in different teams; housing, comercial, interior etc, and the floors are connected with a central, open staircase. Along one side of the glazed facade there are meeting rooms, printer room, bathrooms, and along the other there are smaller seating areas for more informal meetings. The Gascogne East team (working on a large residential project in London) sits on the 5th floor and are part of one of the two housing groups at Katsan. In theory, the whole office has flexible seating where the employees don’t have individual desks and can move around. However, as the Gascoigne East team is relatively large, they have decided to all sit together around one row of desks. In the group, there are primely architects, but also a project administrator and a 3d model and BIM manager. Most of them spend nearly all day sitting in front of the computer at their desks and working in the 3d program Revit. The project architect, however, is more active and is continuously in different meetings. Some meetings are more formal and held in one of the meeting rooms, but others are more informal chats held around a tall table separated from the desks by bookshelves. Overall, the team spend nearly all there time on the 5th floor and in their half of the building, in principle only leaving this area to get coffee or have lunch.
Plan drawing 4th floor with main entrance, reception and work spaces
Quick facts Work hours (day/week): 8/40 Night or daytime: 8-17 or 9-18 Tools / utensils / instruments used: Computers with architecture software, model making tools Fixed or ambulant: Fixed Gender balance of staff: about 50/50 Monthly salary: varies, following Sveriges Arkitekter´s recommendation Sensitive to / Dependent on: Clients, economy, politics etc Conditioned by /Related to: Engineers, fire consultants, contractors, developers etc Special characteristics: The third largest architectural firm in Europe Number of employees: 900 Organisation website: www.whitearkitekter.com Yearly turnaround: 864 178 000 kr Trend: Decreasing due to current housing market
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Tall table for informal meetings
End of day coffee cup collection
Central staircase
Open plan work space
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With Team Leaders at a Small Construction Firm Anette Ă–nerud 30th October, 06.30-15.30, AB Gevert Bergman Bygg & Co, Kungsholmen, Stockholm
When safety and talking to people is essential The construction company AB Gevert Bergman Bygg & Co consists of eleven people, out of which two are administrators, and two are team leaders who oversee the tasks and the work, while also doing some of the construction work themselves. Mostly this company is part of larger projects towards corporate clients in the pharmaceutical field where experience and qualified skills are required – a niche which Bergman Bygg has specialized in. Because of this high level construction work skill and the team leaders’ experience, this company often has temporary employees and subcontractors with other skill sets, such as electricians, plumbers and smiths to complete larger projects. Besides the construction work, a lot of effort is spent on safety measures to avoid injuries and possible chemical pollution. They use things such as hard hats, reflective vests, safety lines and masks - and make sure all material used is approved and contained. Most employees of Bergman Bygg have been there for more than ten years, but there are often temporary employees or sub-contractors involved, whose skill and reliability can vary a lot, which can be difficult to control for the team leaders. Language is also an obstacle when people involved are foreigners or immigrants who speak neither Swedish nor English and the team is forced to use translation apps or one of the staff as translators. Over the course of the fieldwork day, the team leaders had an average of 8 phone calls per hour and spent almost half their time communicating with employees, collaborators and clients - mostly through speaking directly and it was apparent that personal relationships to clients and collaborators is very important. Knowing and trusting each other is sometimes more valued than businesqualifications. At one point during the meeting with a client, constructor and architect at the site, there was a clear sense of loyalty between client and construction team leader who knew each other before, and a divide towards the architect and constructor who they afterwards described as not fully understanding the reality of the project. As an architect at this field research I found the aspect of getting to know the people involved to be a valuable lesson.
Siteplan with movements and points of work, for team leader 06.30-09.30, based at the office on Kungsholmen.
Quick facts Work hours (day/week): 8/40 Daytime 6.30-15.30 (or later for team leaders) Tools / utensils / instruments used: safety gear, crow bar, knife, large saw, etc. Plus rented larger machines such as cranes, water vacuum, etc. Fixed or ambulant: Fixed office and workshop, ambulant tasks reached by foot or by car Specialty: sterile environments in industry Collaborating with other practices: plumbers, electricians, smiths, ventilation, security, etc. Type: Public limited company (aktiebolag) Number of employees: 11 Gender balance of staff: 90% male Trend: The company used to be bigger with more staff, but is reducing due to the work load for the two team leaders not because of lack of project opportunities.
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On the phone for the 25th time in 3 hours.
Working with safety line on 5th floor
Meeting on site with involved parties
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Campus Albano Nazanin Nourazar & Yukang Yang Nov 6, 2pm-4pm, 2 hours at Albano
“Sience Center”
Akademiska hus campusplan för KTH
We had an opportunity to have a conversation with a supervisor manager of Skanska company on a project for Akademiska hus in KTH campus. We felt welcome and got treated friendly both at
places and kitchen as well. Jonas Oldaeus was the supervisor manager, who gave us time to interview him. His responsibility was including to take care of working environment for workers at the place and considering the production continuance and also had responsibility for the whole building area. He described his usual day at work could be like going to meetings “In my daily schedule there are a lot of meetings I need to go to and it seems sometimes that it is a bunch of meetings I am on the most of my working time but it’s just a little part of my role.” His daily schedule stars usually with morning meeting with all the contractors at 7 am. Which cause it requires to stand in front of many people and lead them for job to be done. “You need to be tough and determined in your role as a leader.” He considered it as an important part of his responsibility to make his team to take responsibility and have willing to get involved in their roles as well. He saw it as a challenge which provided him and the other supervisor manager to develop their personality and grow up in their roles as a supervisor manager. with at work was about the sharing area. with every contractor on the projecting area. “There isn’t so much space here and we need to coordinate all the areas between us, for trying to avoid that someone doesn’t put a crane up and prevent others transport and deliveries to the site.”
Construction planning in Albano. Scale 1:20 000
Quick facts Work hours: 8/40 Night or daytime: 8.00-17.00 Tools: Fixed or ambulant: Fixed Gender balance of staff: Mostly men at the site. Sensitive to / Dependent on: Working closely together with other supervisor manager at the site Special characteristics: Construction company Number of employees: 9 300 in 2018 in Sweden Organization or company website: Skanska.se Yearly turnaround: 39 billion in Sweden Trend (increasing/decreasing due to…): Increasing due to work on sustainable buildings
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Current site next to the mining and railway.
Inside office for project managers next to the site.
Project time schedule. Follow it strictly.
Current construction situation. Two buildings in the north are almost be finished.
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Constructing apartment in the Värtavägen Sara Sandkvist Gustafsson&Chunya Wu 07&08/11/2019, 06:44-3:45/9:30-10:10, 9h40min, in Värtavägen, Stockholm
“I like my job, but Architects don’t think is valuable. ” anonymous male(45)
We choosed a site that could be easily watched from Sara’s dorm, which means approch to the construction site both in direct and indirect way (Observation and Interview). This can provides us diverse angle of their work. The first day Sara spend a whole day in watching how they work. Their work started at early morning in 6:44, and ended in around 3:30, the schedule is different from normal one’s, which leads to complain from neighbors. There are 6-7 full-time worker that are working on site, and we can easily tell those older one with more dirty clothes(2) are senior than those with clean clothes(4), as they more in charge of technical work like measurement or contact rather than heavyload job. Workers are almost man, while there are one young woman. A special guy with black shirt seems to be the administrator of site, but it’s unclear what his job is. The second day we interviewed one with dirty clothes, who has 24 years experience in mainly indoor wooden construction. When requesting him describe a typical workday, he answered that here is no typical work day, every day is different, and that’s partly why he love this job( another part he like is the well-paid long working schedule) Then we asked what part in his working surrounding could be improved, and his opinion is that as construction is a teamwork, some worker is lazy and this interfere his desire of working more and get more money. But as our earlier observation, those “lazy” younger workers finished most tiring job like moving the heavy slabs or help pouring the concrete, so it might be reasonable that we don’t want to extend working hours. He also complained about the ignorance of their work from the designer and the public. “...They(the public) think that we make too much money, because we have a fairly high salary. But considering our rough working conditions I think our salaries are fair. People mostly complain about us working early and making noise, but that is unavoidable.”and also for designers,”architects don’t take my work into consideration, they make difficult, expensive things. They should also come more often to the construction site and not just send
Quick facts Work hours (day/week): 9/45 Night or daytime: 06:30-3:30 Tools / utensils / instruments used: A variety of construction tools Fixed or ambulant: ambulant Gender balance of staff: 6 men/1 women Monthly salary: high Sensitive to: Polish immigrant worker( he think they abrupt the market and get their salary down) Conditioned by: Architect, Developer, engineer, program-administor Special characteristics: outdoor teamwork Organisation or company: Number of employees: 7 on site and Organisation or company website: Trend: Increasing cause the immigrants
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The back of the interviewee
Casting process
Watch from higher windows
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Property Manager Amy Bickham & Linda Östrand 30/10 2019 Atrium Ljungberg
“Property management and maintenance will always be needed.” Propery Manager
Magnus has a high school diploma from the furniture- and interior design programme at St Eriks Gymnasium and has since worked as a builder at Einar Matsson (9 years), a kitchen fitter (1 year), a property manager at HSB (1 year) and now as a property manager at Atrium ljungberg (3 years). Magnus comes to work at 7 in the morning and begins by checking the errors that have been reported. At a morning meeting between the property managers and technicians, they divide the work and plan their day, giving them a huge freedom in how they use their time. Normally, there’s about 3 errors/person, including errors such as doors that can’t be opened, a toilet that’s been blocked, malfunctioning heating or grafitti that needs to be removed. All in all, every functional issue with a building is for the property manager to solve, with the result that the managers know their buildings inside and out, with all their imperfections and faults. A normal day can be measured in 20 000 - 30 000 steps on the pedometer, but also includes 3 hours of work in front of the computer, checking error messages, contacting experts and ordering parts. They have lunch from 11 - 12 and two coffee breaks of 15 minutes, one at 9 in the morning and the other at 2 in the afternoon. Since it is their tenants who call them for help, they are most often met with gratitude. The expectations people have on property managers are pretty low, and easy to exceed. The only negativity that Magnus has met has been due to racism and preconceived ideas not connected to his profession. Magnus has noticed that the work of a property manager has changed a lot over the years. As more and more technology is integrated into our buildings, we become more and more reliant on technology for maintenance as well. Now, with smart systems that send warnings when something is wrong, it is possible to fix things before something actually breaks and
a lot of problems can be prevented. The drawback is the increasing reliance, where property managers wait for the technology to tell them that something is wrong instead of going around to their buildings and inspecting them with their own two eyes. The ability to hear or feel when something is wrong is lost, and the property managers become less present in their work.
Quick facts Organisation or company: Atrium Ljungberg AB Website: https://www.al.se Work hours: 8/40, but with intense periods of voluntary overtime Night or daytime: 07.00-16.00 Monthly salary: 24 000 - 32 000, individual salary at Atrium Ljungberg 32 000 - 47 000 according to Unionen.se Fixed or ambulant: Ambulant, walks about a mile a day Number of employees: 270 employees + 100 project employees Gender balance of staff: Male dominated among property managers (2/3) Majority of women in the office and among the executives Philosophy of “the right person on the right position” Related to: Technicians, electricians, plumbers, carpenters, cleaners, planners and project coordinators as well as the colleagues at the office
e ventilation
entilationskontroll)
he ladder in the e (and have thrown ail drop)
13 13:14 Opening up to clean the ventilation with a big brush on a rope. Using a vacuum cleaner for all the dirt that came out. Cleaning the lid with a knife and put it back.
)
13:17 Going back to the bathroom, flushing the toilet. Coming back to the kitchen and checking the ventilation. Continuing to move back and forth between the kitchen and the bathroom.
fferent fan compared d� and wonder bors mbly .
13:24 Noticing that the ventilation is louder than normal. Put back the carpets.
g a ruler and a piece .
kitchen and realize its
13:27 They say goodbye and leave (with the ladder)
Observing housework around my house Knypplerskevägen 24 Bromma 30 October - 6 November Outside: - Collecting garbage - Delivering mail - Cleaning the streets - Mowing the lawn
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Maintaining the buildings at the KTH Campus Tobias Lundgren 2019-11-15, 13:00-16:00, KTH Campus Brinellvägen25 “Bergs” building
“I would say about 80% of work is individual” Milan - Operating technician at Akademsika hus KTH Milan, one of 13 operating technicians working at the KTH Campus in Stockholm, is responsible for four buildings at the campus. One of these buildings is the building know at Akademiska hus as “Bergs”, Brinellvägen 25. The building holds construction technology studies and it is a building Milan routinely visits for doing his technical maintenance work. As an operating technician in the KTH Campus, Milan spends most of his time (about 80% according to him, where the other 20% is spent in meeting coordinating the work with the managers and other technicians) going around in the buildings he is responsible for and checking a multitude of technical systems (including, but not limited to, electrical, ventilation, heating and fire safety systems). In most cases, each system is distinct and has its own control center/technical space in the building (refer to floor plan of Brinellvägen 25). Together the systems take up a large amount of space in the building, space which is completely out of reach for the everyday user of the building (in this case students and teachers at KTH). As there are a number of systems to interact with, the specific tasks vary greatly dependent on the system, but also dependent on the type of interaction with the system. The operating technician is not responsible for doing the installation of, for example, new office space ventilation system (see Photo P1), but they are responsible for calibrating it to the needs of the people using the building. Making sure that it functions correctly, but also doing maintenance work (both digital and analog) in the case that someone sends an error report to the Akademiska hus office (done through a digital form on the Akademiska hus website). For large scale buildings, as in a university, Milans job is an increasingly complicated one with constantly evolving digitalization of the technical systems present in modern buildings.
P3
P2
P1
Brinellvägen 25. Scale 1:100 Ground floor plan with technical spaces highlighted in red
Quick facts Work hours (day/week): 8/40 Night or daytime (eg. 9-17, night or shifts): 7:30-16:30 Tools / utensils / instruments used: Various Fixed or ambulant: Semi fixed (KTH Campus) Conditioned by /Related to [eg. in collaboration with other jobs/ practices]: Private entrepreneurs (Plumbers, Electicians etc.), Janiorial staff Special characteristics: Operating technicians Organisation or company (if any): Akademiska Hus Number of employees: 13 operating technicians 3 manages 1 head of office Organisation or company website (if any): https://www.akademiskahus.se/ditt-campus/ stockholm/kth-campus/
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P2. Photo of chemical lab ventilation room
P1. Photo of office ventilation room with Milan
P3. Photo of electrical terminal
Photo of office ventilation room control panel
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Cleaning and caretaking - private Lejla Rizvani 20th october 2019
“The best thing with this job is the constant company� Minnah (32)
Cleaning and caretaking in a private home is a job with lot of responsibilities. Minnah, the worker I shadowed is a caretaker of an individual with multiple sclerosis who is paralyzed. This individual need someone around all hours of the day, seven days per week. Since this individual is paralyzed, the caretaking is very challenging and puts a lot of stress on both Minnah and the inidivual. Minnah works both daytime and nightime. The day shifts consist of 9 hours, while the night shifts are 24 hours long. An ordinary day consists of bringing the individual to the hospital for dialysis. After returning home, Minnah feeds the individual and prepares for a shower. After these two steps, the individual spends the day in front of the TV, until dinner is served by Minnah and til its bedtime. If Minnah stays the night, she sleeps at the couch and guards over the individual This caretaking is more challenging than needed because of the individual’s small apartment, where the workplace is. The individual lives in a small 1-bedroom apartment, while the individual is depentend of a big wheelchair in order to move around. Too narrow openings make it hard to move around since the wheelchair is almost the same width. The openings of the apartment have therefore got ruined with time. An attempt to save the openings has been made by putting metal on the frames. Since the apartment is so small, a special roof-lift is installed in order to move around easier, but to transfer the individual to the lift from the wheelchair is a tough process. While showering the individual, Minnah must crawl under the individual in order to get around and clean the whole body. This is a huge side effect that puts a lot of stress on the workers bodies, which they all suffer from chronical back and shoulder pains.
Picture showing the metal on the frames around the openings.
Quick facts Work hours (day/week): varies, minimu 20 hours/ week. Day shifts are 9 hours, and night shifts 24 hours. Night or daytime: both day and night shifts Fixed or ambulant: Fixed Gender balance of staff: 100% female Monthly salary: 128 SEK/ hour Related to: Hospital visits Special characteristics: Guarding patient 24/7 Organisation or company: tio100 Number of employees: 4 Trend: decreasing, hard to find employees
A public workplace is something you go to everyday, and leave at the end of the day to go home. But what if the home is the workplace, that you never get to leave or escape? The work is done in the private home of the individual, which is very different from work fields that have separate non private workplaces. Someone’s private home is a quite unique workplace that is not alike anything else. Minnah’s main struggle at work is dealing with the apartment itself, more than taking care of the paralyzed individual. Since the apartment and the home is in focus, Minnah has gotten to know the apartment very well, what’s functioning and what does not work well. Unfortunately, after years of caretaking and cleaning Minnah has concluded that nothing is working as it should in this particular situation. The 1-bedroom apartment was designed for people living “a normal life”, and not designed for a paralyzed individual to live in with a big wheelchair. It is important to point out that houses and apartments are designed for a scenario, but the people living in them might have a totally different scenario. These two then meet, but not always work well together. Housework and labour is a very wide topic that includes a variety of things and professions. Hannah Arendt, in her book The Human Condition, describes the difference between active life and contemplative life. The active life is argued to be defined and essential for the contemplative life. The active life is divided into three parts; labour, work and action. What relates to this situation is Arendt’s description of labour and action, that is described to be necessary for survival. Labour, done by Minnah, in this case is necessary for the survival of the individual which can be seen as Arendt describes it - as slavery rather than freedom. Action is described to be activities that involve interaction between people, which is all what this work is about. Minnah is in a constant dialogue with the individual, to satisfy the individuals needs and take care of the individual. Arendt describes that we distinguish ourselves through action, and not labour. Speech is viewed as uniquely human.
17 This work would have been very different if the workplace was different, or the home was much bigger and spacious and/or designs specifically for this situation. Lacaton and Vassal have described in many different interviews how important it is to talk to the residents, to see what they have to say and hear their suggestions. It is the residents, more than the architects, that know how the apartment and community truly works. This job has many difficulties, side effects and tough situations, but Minnah points out how much she loves her job. The best thing with her work is the constant company she has from the individual, and that she brings meaning and work into the individual’s life. The labour seen as “slavery”, is something Minnah does more than gladly.
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Unclogging toilets at KTH Campus Trixie Lindkvist & Karin Weissenegger 15.11.2019, one full workday, 7-16 (9 hours)
“It’s a smelly job” Thomas (27) [fictive name]
Plumbers oscillate between clean and dirty, between order and chaos. They fix broken pipes, install heating systems, manage wastewater and keep our daily fluids flowing. They help maintain architectural values with a crude monkey wrench. Plumbers are hard to find. We got the impression they prefer to go at their business alone, discreet and uninterrupted. We wandered the campus in quest of finding a subject to observe, asking at multiple desks for plumbers maintaining the buildings. The response was always of enthusiasm and appraisal of the restorers of chaos. Only no one knew where and how to find them. After a long chase we found ourselves joining their 7am meeting one Friday morning. “I hate working with private clients” was one of the first comments we wrote down in our notebooks. Apparently, working in people’s homes is too demanding. These plumbers are humble, not wanting to trespass on people’s privacy (or vice versa). The discomfort of our presence was apparent. The men finished gulping coffee and jumped in their white vans, off to the first mess of the day. A toilet had been clogged in one of the university buildings, water leaking out into the hallway and down the stairs. When we got there the chaos had already been restored (to our disappointment), but a small chip of the porcelain toilet had fallen off in the turmoil. The whole toilet had to be replaced, for clean appearance we suppose. You could tell Thomas was loosening up a bit on the drive to pick up a new toilet and dispose the old one. “It’s a smelly job”, he said, “luckily I have never had to wade in shit up to my knees”, referring to a colleague. After a long tiring week of replacing rusty pipes, crawling under dirty old foundations and carrying heavy toilets, Thomas was happy to finish early at 3pm to have a beer with his fellow plumber friends. The chaos and the monkey wrench laid to rest over the weekend.
The Chase Finding a plumber on KTH campus
Quick facts Work hours (day/week): 8/40 Night or daytime: 7-16 Tools / utensils / instruments used: Polygrip, Monkey wrench, Pipe press Fixed or ambulant: Ambulant Gender balance of staff: 1 woman, 5 men Monthly salary: 30 000-35 000 Dependent on (partially): Akademiska hus Conditioned by /Related to: Industry regulations Special characteristics: Family company Organisation or company: MBergfjord VVS & Fastighetsteknik Number of employees: 6 Company website: www.mb2.se Yearly turnaround: 500 000-999 000 SEK Trend sensitives: New technologies
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Modernizing Stockholm 1897. Source: Stockholmskällan
A Clog-free Nation. Plumbers as heroes. Source: American Standard, Google.
Toilet disposal. Final destination.
Infrastructure. KTH underground.
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Cleaning the KTH School of Architecture Emma Fransson & Erika Wibom October 18th 07:00-12:00
“You should see what this place looks like in the morning.” Jitakan, cleaning the “ritsalar”
The job is performed during the day and full time 40h /week. The employers are ”KTH lokalvård” and have about 52 people working in all buildings on campus. The employees have specific places/premises where they work, the architectural building is called the “Arken” and three people work there, two cleaning the ”ritsalar” and one on the ground floor as well as in KTH entrance. Of those three persons one male and two female. The income is according to agreement, which means that everyone, including those working in the administration, has the same income. In the architecture building, there are cleaning rooms on each floor and a larger storage room on the ground floor that contains paper, cleaning products, soap filling etc. The work day starts at 5.30-6.30, everyone must first take the administration where they pick up the keys for the building work to be done and put on the work clothes. The workday includes a break of 15min and 45min lunch. The day ends at 14-14.30 and then all keys must be returned. The work is done before most students are in the premises, so that no one should be in the way of each other. Cleaning of the ”ritsalar” is done twice a week while cleaning of the kitchen areas and toilets is done daily. The work is independent and can be carried out alone, so some choose to listen to music or talk on the phone while they do their work. There are two cleaning carts with space for mops, brushes, buckets and other utensils and cleaning products. In the larger storage room on the ground floor is a machine for cleaning the floor. Detergents are free of chemicals and what is most commonly used is ordinary water, soap and detergent. Some movements like pulling back and forth chairs is strenuous on the body, especially in the larger lecture halls. Accidents rarely occur. During the summer, when the school is empty of students, more inaccessible spaces are cleaned and external staff is hired for this work. Previous experience is required and the staff must know Swedish. The people we talked to were happy with their work and their workplace.
Escape plan. Ground floor with cleaning storages.
Quick facts Work hours (day/week): 8/40 Night or daytime (eg. 9-17, night or shifts): flex time, start 5:306:30, end 14:00-14:30 Tools / utensils / instruments used: Cleaning utensils, combi machine Fixed or ambulant: Semi fixed Gender balance of staff: 50/50 Monthly salary [eg. varies from xx – xx]: Follows collective agreement, around 23 000 SEK Sensitive to / Dependent on [eg. other practices, times, occurrences]: Regular activities in the building Conditioned by /Related to [eg. in collaboration with other jobs/ practices]: Window cleaners, janitor Special characteristics: Start early; independent; hired by the school, not as often otherwise external cleaning services Organisation or company (if any): KTH Number of employees: 52 cleaning employees, 3 in the architecture building Organisation or company website (if any): https://intra.kth.se/ campus/lokalservice/lokalvard/lokalvard-1.31749 Yearly turnaround (if any): Trend (increasing/decreasing due to…): -
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Cleaning cart with utensils.
1910 - cleaning.
Zink and mops - there are no washing machines at “Arken�.
Window ledge high up - one of the places that is difficult to reach.
Ground floor main cleaning storage room.
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Dirt, order and cleaning in the subway Malin Stavander 1 November 2019, 09-14:00, 5 hours spend at T-centralen, Thordilsplan and Åkeshov
“Where there’s a gap, people will put stuff in there” Sales woman (23) Pressbyrån
Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week; constantly. Work performed day and night. Cleaning jour accessible at any point. Work done by shoveling, sweeping, dusting, mopping, washing, wiping ,scraping, collecting, emptying, picking, pouring, stretching, and spraying. Work done by humans and the mashine. The human using the broom, shovel, pick-stick, mop, scraper, knife, cloth, spray bottle, chip, paper, ionized-water, soap and the body itself, like foot, feet, and hands. Shovel the dust into the shovel, emptying in the dustbin. Picking up garbage at the floor with the pick-stick. Pouring chip at sanatories. Scraping ingrained chewing gum with the scraper. Dust drying of interior, wiping of handrails, displays, windows and benches. Work done with a helping hand from the mashine. Supplying the high pressure water at roof, walls, floors, details when the human body can’t.
Plan of Centralen (1957), Scale 1:400 The upper walls of the western ticket hall are artistically decorated with patterns.
Quick facts Work hours (day/week): 5/40 Night and daytime, 3 shifts: 6-14:30, 7-15:30, 23-6 Tools / utensils / instruments used: Broom, shovel, pick-stick, mop, scraper, long-handled tools, micro fibre cloth, knife, spray bottle, chip, plastic bags, paper, cleaning trolley, vacuum salt, water, floor machine and skylift. Fixed or ambulant: Ambulant in specific station Gender balance of staff: 85% Men 15% Women Monthly salary [varies from 18 300 – 25 000 sek] Conditioned by /Related to [eg. in collaboration with other jobs/ practices]: grafitti rehabilitator, SL support. Special characteristics: Black working clothes with MTR logotype, steelcap shoes & gloves. Organisation or company: MTR Nordic Number of employees: 300 working with cleaning Organisation or company website: http://www. mtrnordic.se Trend: Increasing work burden in rush hours and descreasing in night hours due to amount of people traveling.
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“Mopping floor” T-Centralen (1957) Source: Stockholms källan
Trash in corner (2019) Source: Me
“Door cleaning” (1953) Source: Stockholms källan
The dirt and dust
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Window cleaning at Fiskhallen/Årstaberg Ludvig Ekman & Jeanette Hoff 08.11.2019. 12.00 -15.00, 3 hours spend icluding windows washed and interview.
“Two things needed to become a window cleaner: long arms and being stupid ” Tarek (51)
Tarek from Milsten Fönsterputs och Städ is picking us in his car at Årtstaberg Station - and we then drive a few minutes to an old industrial area - where we will clean some of the windows at Fiskhallen - the old fish hall. On a normal day - you can wash about 100-150 windows - and larger jobs like schools or kindergarteners will take approximately three days. Other cleaning jobs can be newly finished buildings- that needs to get ready. So it’s all about adding some alcohol to the water bucket (if cold outside), mix - and go! The water should be lukewarm, and only add normal dish cleaners - in this case - it’s going to be 10 windows, that would take aprrox 30 min. Fiskhallen windows are double glazed, with and possibility to open the one set of windows and clean the inside as well. This is done once a year, the outside/inside is done twice. There are about four small offices, that all have about two or three square windows in each room. To start off, you dab some soap water on to the window, and then immediatelyafteryoumovethewindowsqueegee in one continuous movement across the whole window, if you stop, there will be marks, and you might have to do the whole procedure all over again. The access water left at the bottom and around the edges are carefully removed with a dry cloth. One out of ten windows are done! First you start with the outside, then you open the double windows and do both of the insides - and then you leave the inner window until last and finally you can look through your four sides of clean windows. The most satisfying thing about cleaning windows- is that everyone always get in such a good mood after, and they are really appreciative. Like one time Tarek got a text from a private customer saying: I have a very happy wife now. It has been a while.
The Old-House Journal, Anatomy of a Double-Hung Windoow.
Quick facts Work hours (day/week): 7/40 Daytime: 7-14 Tools / utensils / instruments used: Bucket, cleaning soap, window scraper, window washer, and lots of cloths. Fixed or ambulant: Fixed Gender balance of staff: Mostely menn Monthly salary: varies from 20 000-35 000 Sensitive to/Dependent on: Season, weaterand temerature. Conditioned by /Related: Other cleaning jobs. Special characteristics: Highest on “cleaning hiarki”. Company: Milsten Fönsterputs och Städ Company website: milsten.se Trend: More private people use it, due to tax refund.
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A New York window cleaner, at Rockefeller Center, 1950, Getty Images.
“The window cleaners”, photo by Pete Edmumds, 2015.
Tetris Grid Facade Fenestratio, photo cred: unknown.
Window cleaning - the small windows at the old Fish-Hall, now offices - near Årstaberg, 2019.
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Buildning debris collector Elvira Anshelm & Martin Gabrielsson 2019-10-09, 05.30, 8 h spent on the fieldwork. In Jordbro and different places in Stockholm.
“I love driving a truck” Alex, 35
The building debris collectors start at 05.30, partially to avoid the rush hour traffic in the city. They meet at the Sorteras office in Jordbo south of Stockholm for breakfast and to go through the work of the day. Everyone get their daily schedule and leave Jordbro in their own personal truck. They pick up building debris collected in big bags made of a recycled plastic fabric. Sometimes they also deliver material to construction sites, for example gravel and filling mass. They pick up the bags from the streets with a crane arm controlled with a remote controller often standing on the truck to be able to see down in the building debris container on the back of the truck. Before picking the bags up they mark them up to know who the client is. Sometimes they have to move them slightly with their own bodies in order for the crane to reach them. When the building debris container on the back of the truck is full, they go back to Jordbro. In Jordbro they first drive the truck on to a big scale to weight the truck when it’s filled up. They empty the truck at Sorteras recycle center and weight the truck again when it’s empty to calculate the total amount of the debris they just been collecting. I typical round usually collects around four to five tons of debris. The the mixed debris gets sorted by machines before it’s ready to be recycled and sold. This is also a good time for the workers to have lunch at the office in Jorbro. After lunch the same procedure is repeated, they go back to the truck and continues picking up building debris during the afternoon. When the building debris container is full, they go back to Jordbro again and empty it. The work is repetitive even though every pick up is slightly different depending on location and the debris of the bag. The working days ends relatively early at half past two in the afternoon for most of the employees.
Filled truck. From top.
Quick facts Work hours (day/week): 8/40 Daytime: 05.30-14.30 Tools / utensils / instruments used: A truck, a crane, spray paint. Fixed or ambulant: Fixed Gender balance of staff: only men. Monthly salary varies from 25 000- 29 000 kr Special characteristics: Truck driver licens Organisation or company: Sortera Number of employees: 30 truckdrivers in Jorbro Organisation or company website: https://sortera.se/ Yearly turnaround (if any): Trend: The use of big bags are increasing.
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Emptying the truck.
Pick up on a street.
Filled big bag.
Sorting the building debris at the recycle center.
Opening the truck at the recycle center.
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Bromma Recycling Centre Federico Taverna Friday 8th December 2019
“We are all operating towards a sustainable practice� Kostas (42) [fictive name]
The Bromma recycling centre is one of the six waste collection centres managed by Stockholm Vatten och Avfall. In this centre, waste (but also materials that are no longer used) are collected in containers that are then sorted and distributed to the different companies that deal with their treatment. The centre collects waste of various kinds: solid waste, organic waste, waste fabrics, hazardous materials and objects that are no longer used. The Stockholm Vatten och Avfall team has established a plan for 2040 whose vision regarding waste management includes four main goals regarding recycling and waste disposal: Waste from residents and those working in the city should be reduced and what still arises must be taken care of resource efficiently; waste that can be harmful to humans or the environment must be prevented and handled safely; waste management must be adapted to man; waste management should be an obvious part of the city’s physical planning. The centre is open both for private customers, for whom the service is free, and for companies that have to pay a fee. Customers have access to platforms where every indication is clearly illustrated, but the employees are always available and ready to help customers in the unloading of waste and explain their right place in the containers. It is precisely this aspect that makes workers happy about their employment in the centre, as they have the opportunity to establish a sense of responsibility towards the customer regarding a sustainable practice of recycling and disposal of waste. Employees in different areas of the centre and in different roles prefer to help and assist the customer rather than placing waste in the wrong container. The team working at the centre is made up of international staff and the atmosphere is extremely pleasant for both employees and customers.
Site plan of the Bromma recycling centre. Scale 1:10000 Articulation of the centre showing the possibility to drive around it and to collect the containers from the space inbetween
Quick facts Work hours (day/week): 8/40 (closed 6 days per year) Night or daytime: 9-17 Tools / utensils / instruments used: Forklift, conveyor cart, pliers, stepladder, containers, rolling press Fixed or ambulant: Fixed Gender balance of staff: 10 male, 2 female Sensitive to / Dependent on: sensitive to the care and accuracy of the clients and companies Conditioned by /Related to: related to companies dealing witht the transportation and dismntling of the waste Organisation or company (if any): Stockholm Vatten Och Avfall Number of employees: 12 Organisation or company website: https://www. stockholmvattenochavfall.se/
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Stockholm’s 20th century waste management.
City garbage: recovery, incineration and dumping in Stockholm 1900-1975 / Ylva S. SjĂśstrand
Area inbetween the containers
Employee helping a client in the recyclkng of wood
Garbage press at work
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Real Estate Agents of Stockholm Jeroen Pospiech Interviews performed on 19/11, 13/12 and 18/12 2019 in Södermalm, Kungsholmen and Östermalm
“Of course some people leave this business because they feel insecure about it. Because they don’t know if they will have money for their rent or for food or things.” Anonymous
Research is performed through a series of short interviews rather than following a single person around. It was found that real estate agents generally have little time and are only approachable through matching with their schedule - hence short interviews work better. Their flexibility in working hours means it is hard to make an appointment as they will value their business over the interview. The research was performed in some of the richer neighbourhoods of Stockholm in order to approach agents whom work in similar ways. The interviews were performed anonymously and the companies remain disclosed in order to let the interviewees speak freely. Agents are generally very flexible with their working hours though they tend to work a lot. Their work mainly consists of setting up buyers and sellers with one another, the actual bidding and transaction is not their business. They perform their jobs mainly within their own office, though it also involves receiving or visiting the clients who want to sell their property. Furthermore, it involves inviting and receiving potential buyers of the real estate through viewings. Additionally, some office might also stylize spaces or apply more attention to advertizing the spaces.
Quick facts Work hours (day/week): 11/66 Night or daytime (eg. 9-17, night or shifts): 9-20 Tools / utensils / instruments used: Computer Fixed or ambulant: Ambulant Gender balance of staff: 50/50 Monthly salary: varries Sensitive to / Dependent on: housing market Conditioned by /Related to: economy Special characteristics: long days, long holidays Organisation or company: anonymous Number of employees: varying Trend: increasing due to end of crisis
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