city...water...people
Healing After Nature
crisis...dystopia
Located in Desert Hot Springs, CA, The Healing Machine is a facility for both the treatment of cancer, as well as a local water filltration center. The building’s function heals both the sick and the city through the powers of the special water and the mechanics of the building itself. As our surroundings change, this machine will ocntinue to operate long after our control. Response to Slavoj Žižek Crisis is the system through which we cope against the idea of Cosmic Pessimism. The struggle for us to find meaning in a Dystopian universe which is “absolutely unhuman, and indifferent to the hopes, desires, and struggles of human individuals and groups.” We are in a constant struggle between our instinct to find meaning and the universe’s complete indifference to us. Zizek asserts that “Capitalism is always in crisis.” This leads to the assertion that Nature, too, is always on the brink of disaster. He argues that it’s incorrect to think of “Mother Nature” before the Industrial Revolution as being a harmonious and steady state. This is false logic, and therefore the idea that Capitalism is the antithesis of that steady-state nature is also false. So assuming that Crisis is the status quo, what does that mean? In short, the idea that the world as a whole is always imbalanced is freeing. The only way to survive is to react; the crisis forces us to implement tactics rather than imagine strategies. There isn’t enough time, data, expertise, etc. to understand and then strategize a way to “bring balance to the world.” Instead, we should be happy to fight and survive one Crisis after the next. This heralds back to the idea of embracing the ugly problems in the world. There will always be huge problems that need to be solved, and the worst response we can have is to try and ignore them by relaxing in our manufactured “natural” environments.
“Nobody exists on purpose, nobody belongs anywhere, everybody’s going to die.”
Cancer Patient Mapping
Desert Hot Springs Water Mapping
Cancer Patient Mapping
Chemotherapy Treatment Center
Home
Naturopathy Treatement Center
50 Miles
Machine Plan Collage
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Entry Perspective and Elevation
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team double trouble
Entry Perspective and Elevation team double trouble
Mining Machine Section Collage
Chemotherapy Perspective and Section team double trouble
ADE 622: Spring 2016 Advanced Architectural Studio IV
Students: Lauren Bucher, Conor Keilty Instructor: Claudio Vekstein