Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Archifutures 132
Archifutures 132
Archifutures 132
Architecture
Platform
A field guide
to the future
of architecture
Edited by &beyond
Compiled by jean jaques
Future
Architecture
Platform
Future Architecture platform
Archifutures
27
In The Prison of the Present
A short guide to post-futurist design
strategies
By Ana Jeinić
Illustrations by Andreas Töpfer
45
You Can’t Have One Without the Others
The future of designing for the urban
environment
Interview with Filipe Estrela and Sara
Neves, Ilirjana Haxhiaj and Jeta Bejtullahu,
Holly Lewis and Oliver Goodhall,
By Fiona Shipwright
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Common Places
Plan Común’s public greenhouse for
Graz
By Felipe de Ferrari, Kim Courrges, Diego
Grass & Thomas Batzenschlager
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The Bigger Picture
Socially-informed urban transformation
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By Aleksandra Zarek
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8
Domains
of Influence
9
A discussion about data,
archives, taxonomy,
context and credit
ownership?”
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ambiguity about
important simply
is becoming more
because there is an
“Perhaps authorship
Taxonomies
Archifutures
Previous spread:
The Castle detail, screenprint
and graphite on paper.
Image: Ryan Whelan
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Domains of Influence Taxonomies
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MF It depends on the scale. In the act of selecting and curating, all
For some large organisations three of us, in one way or another, are in-
like Facebook, for instance, it’s volved in what could be described as con-
all about data. But when you temporary digital archiving in relation to
work at a smaller scale, like the field of architecture; we’re just oper-
socks, data is a only a small ating at different scales and in different
part of the equation because ways. We each deal with large volumes of
we cannot control it; we don’t information in the form of data and rep-
know much about what to do resent it. In the act of re-presenting, this
with it, and we try not to think material begins to accumulate new data in
too much about it. We extract terms of who is looking at it, how long they
some information out of it, are looking at it, where and how are they
of course, but it doesn’t really are sharing it and so on. You start getting
influence what we are doing. these pathways of propagation through
To take data out of content the tendrils of the internet; data packets
requires a sort of critical mass. extend and distend until they have depar-
ted the point of the “curated” archive. Is
it more accurate to suggest that digital ar-
chiving is becoming more about data col-
lection than conventional curation?
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Domains of Influence Taxonomies
It’s interesting that you suggest that you MF We imagine [our website]
have very little control over the data as a territory of images and
that you are accumulating. Large-scale information, and we imagine
operations control the small-scale but, as ourselves and our users
a collective, small-scale operations can navigating pathways through
also control the dominant forces on the it. Before the internet, or
internet. For instance, algorithms can be before we had such a large-
deceived – quite easily, for now at least – scale data on the internet, we
to present particular data through certain had magazines with editorials
social media platforms, if you have the that provided a set of keys to
knowledge, experience and flexibility to unlock your way through their
manipulate them; if you have, as you put content. We are looking to find
it, the required “critical mass”. other keys to give to people
who want to access the data,
One of the defining parameters of an and there are many ways to
archive, in the physical sense at least, do it. We don’t give editorial
is that it can be accessed and that access guidance, but create a sort of
is tangible. By now, we have become so chain between content. You
accustomed to the notion that practically begin with one item of content
anybody can access the internet but, in that is connected to many
your position as the producers of a digital others. People follow their
archiving project, do you ever consider the own paths, and these paths
concept of access? How people are – or are are a way to create access.
not – accessing the data you re-present? In this sense, we are sort of
at a midway point between
providing something that is
curated by us but also opens other curatorial possibilities
for the readers themselves.
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Domains of Influence Taxonomies
MF This idea of attention as In the December 1997 issue of Wired mag-
a currency really shifts the azine – back when Wired was just on pa-
nature of editorial work that per – a theoretical physicist called Michael
we were just talking about. Goldhaber wrote an article called “Atten-
Before this situation came tion Shoppers!”. He said – to paraphrase
along, a reader had fewer – that “the economy of attention, not in-
choices if they wanted to learn formation, will become the economy of
about architecture compared cyberspace.” Information, he said, was
to today. Your attention was endless, but attention – which is defined by
already captured. Now you how many “eyeballs” there are in the world
have to make a product or a able to consume information – is a finite
way of showing content that resource; perhaps the most consequential
is engaging, and this changes finite resource. He argued that, eventu-
everything completely. As ally, the currency of money will be replaced
little as ten years ago, the entirely by the currency of attention be-
internet was less engaging cause it is our scarcest and most valuable
and interesting compared to resource, collectively and as individuals.
books and magazines. Now His words were enormously prescient in
it’s completely the other way terms of understanding the situation un-
around. With magazines there folding before us now. For every single
was this idea of authority major internet platform – through which
somehow. people access contemporary archives and
which sit somewhere between informa-
tion gathering and media organisations
– is the single most important resource
simply because they are able to transform
it most easily into financial revenue.
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Domains of Influence Taxonomies
Goldhaber also observed in the same arti- MF It is also about authorship
cle that what he found fascinating about today, too. From the point
Hollywood movies is that they developed of view of socks, we are
an amazing acknowledgement of people interested in authorship, but
by means of credits. When a book is made, most of the time we are more
not everyone involved in bringing it about interested in the relationships
is credited. The proofreaders or the sub- between content. More than
editors simply don’t appear in colophons. what makes something specific,
On the internet, in the same way as Holly- we’re interested in what makes
wood movies then and now, credits are all- it common. For us it is about
important. On ArchDaily, and particularly more than the single person,
in relation to the Projects Archive, credits it’s about a chain of knowledge
are central to the way that buildings are – because everybody is an
published. Acknowledgement operates author of course.
almost as a currency. But Goldhaber was
also raising a more interesting discussion: FL The fact that the
attention is only the aim of the game as importance of the individual
long as everybody wants a slice of it, made is becoming eroded by the
more valuable because it is finite. Credits amount of information is very
– metadata – are important because every- interesting. According to what
one wants their five seconds in the spot- you suggest, James, authors
light. seem to be alarmed by this
erosion, or disappearance, of
the individual. We started
ArchDaily
socks more than ten years ago as a way to overcome – it’s
Begun as a simple blog
in Santiago de Chile by sort of a paradox – the spread of vehicles of information
David Basulto and David like Tumblr or Pinterest. They didn’t exist at the time,
Assael in 2008, ArchDaily
(archdaily.com) has now but they were incubating. We were far more interested in
developed into a multilingual retrieving the actual information that was behind a single
international platform for
architects and architecture image or in a single text or single medium of production.
with some 500,000 daily When we became interested in an image, we tried to...
readers and some 160 million
page views per month in 2016.
MF ...find the story behind it...
FL …and, naturally, when you start investigating
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Domains of Influence Taxonomies
Let’s focus on images. The image has be- MF For an image to be able
come the primary means of communica- to do this, means that it’s very
tion through the internet. Images and dense. When an image is able
moving images have taken pole position at to attract people somehow,
the top of the consumption chain, perhaps it always means there is
stemming from the image-centric dis- something more behind it. So
semination of culture, media and enter- we cannot say that it’s “just” an
tainment that developed through film and image.
television. While an image on the internet
is comprised of the same bits and bytes that FL In its singularity, an image
construct text, the retrieval systems devel- can convey all these tissues of
oped over the last couple of decades have information. Take for example
been basically designed to give priority to a recent post that we published
the image. And when socks, for example, on SOCKS about the work of
take a single image in order to investigate the photographer Jeff Wall. It’s
it and add a whole tissue of information not just photography that he
around it, it’s still that single image that produces; it’s an entire world
first gets people and invites them to enter of information – a constructed
the rabbit hole that you have dug for them. landscape; a relationship with
The image is still paramount even after other pictures in the past; a
the research is conducted and presented. relationship with culture and
so on. I don’t mean that every
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Archifutures
MF I think it is just as The fact that images are easy to read,
important as it was before. and very quickly, means that they hold a
There are people and work lot of weight and value in terms of their
behind this information – it’s role in the economy of attention. So who
just the incredible mass of it... owns these images, and who holds control
of their propagation, becomes very inter-
FL It is culturally important, esting. In the world of print, ownership
much more than in terms of rights are usually addressed within the
economic profit. It is culturally realm of national laws. But on the inter-
important in the sense that we net things are a little more complex in
need to know who produced terms of the lack of control over how they
an image, under what spread. Do you think that ownership of
conditions and in what kind of information like images and text, or even
relationship to other things. film and music, is less important now
than it has been?
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Domains of Influence Taxonomies
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Archifutures
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In the Prison
of the Present
A short guide
to post‑futurist
design strategies
27
By Ana Jeinić
Illustrations by Andreas Töpfer
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In the Prison of the Present After the Future
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Archifutures
Building on her essay “Where Have All the Flowers Ana Jeinić
Gone?” from Volume 2 of the Archifutures series, Ana Jeinić was born in
architectural theorist Ana Jeinić addresses the Yugoslavia in 1981. She
has since lived, thought,
architect’s fear of the future yet further by taking learned and taught in
a critical look at some current strategies for a Graz, Venice, Amsterdam,
Berlin, Edinburgh, and
“post-futurist tomorrow”. The following strategies Zagreb. Upon completing
were written for the 2017 exhibition she curated her studies in architecture
in Graz, she mainly worked
at the Haus der Architektur in Graz entitled: as an architectural theorist
“Architecture After the Future”.* and educator and aims to
become a utopianist in
the future. She considers
According to social theorists, such as Marc Augé or herself a futurist who
despises “futurist design”;
Franco “Bifo” Berardi, we live in an age characterised
a progressivist critical of
by the collapse of the very idea of the future. In technological optimism;
a universalist detesting
the last decades of the twentieth century, alongside
all forms of essentialism;
recurring economic crisis, discouraging reports to a communist rejecting
post‑socialist nostalgia and
the Club of Rome and the apparent collapse of the
an internationalist opposing
socialist project, our belief in the future was irreparably neoliberal globalisation.
Much of her personal and
shattered. Considering that the architectural project,
professional commitment
in the conventional sense of the term, has always comes from the persuasion
that only the life that projects
been a project of the future, the situation has had
itself into the future is worth
profound consequences for architecture as a discipline. living and that only the
society that strives towards
Understanding and revealing different ways by which
a utopian horizon is a truly
contemporary architecture has been adapting to emancipated society.
post‑futurist social conditions therefore presents a major
task for the contemporary discourse on architecture.
It is also a necessary prelude to the imminent debate
on how to reintegrate the dimension of the future
once again into the architectural and broader cultural
imagination. The short texts below about post-futurist
design strategies have been developed with this aim
in mind, as a part of the Architecture After the Future
curatorial and research project. It is important to note * First published at
that the outlined strategies do not constitute an ultimate architecture-after-the-future.org
in 2017 and reproduced here
taxonomy of the post-futurist design culture – they are with kind permission of
conceived as a deliberately provisional and open-ended the author.
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In the Prison of the Present After the Future
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In the Prison of the Present After the Future
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In the Prison of the Present After the Future
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You Can’t
Have One
Without
the Others
45
The future of designing
for the urban environment
practice.”
You Can’t Have One Without the Others
47
“Before we are
our professional
architects we are
our conscience as
citizens that shapes
New Urban Resilience
Archifutures
Previous spread:
High level lettering and estate
entrance improvements.
Image: Thomas Adank
© We Made That
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You Can’t Have One Without the Others New Urban Resilience
4th
industrial it permane nt pr
of of
revolution pr dweller/family it
air cyber p hysical systems
internet of things
airpnd house ren
t wo
rk
cloud computin g
guest client
inter- des-
oper ality cen tralisation
air housing
profit
dwell
sharing independe nt
econom y work
profit
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Archifutures
Holly Lewis and Oliver Goodhall (HL & OG) Our proposals
for Supermix in the City don’t imply decentralisation per
se. We’re interested in more sophisticated spatial planning
that uses technological understanding and design to move
beyond crude “zoning” approaches that separate places
where stuff is made from places where people sit behind
desks and places where people live. Some of the best bits
of cities are diverse and multiplicitous, but our experience
is that this isn’t how we’re building now. The process of
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You Can’t Have One Without the Others New Urban Resilience
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You Can’t Have One Without the Others New Urban Resilience
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You Can’t Have One Without the Others New Urban Resilience
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Archifutures
IH & JB Given that all What is the role of the architect and archi-
indicators point to a difficult tecture here? Are they solution-designers
social and economic situation, or merely filling in the gaps left by negli-
where the dominance of gent governments?
multi-member households
also indicates low levels
of economic development and in most cases, only one
family member is employed while women are left
entirely outside the labour market, then it is necessary
to initiate proposals and solutions that engender social
and economic development for this minority community.
The architect’s task is to bring small changes to the
community by helping engage them in work and activities
that will improve their welfare. Although there are a lot of
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You Can’t Have One Without the Others New Urban Resilience
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Archifutures
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Common
Places
By Felipe de Ferrari,
Kim Courrèges,
Diego Grass
& Thomas Batzenschlager
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Plan Común’s
public greenhouse
for Graz
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Common Places
“The goal is to
offer alternatives,
which reaffirm
the public value of
Plan Común’s public greenhouse for Graz
architecture as the
Diego Grass & Thomas Batzenschlager
By Felipe de Ferrari, Kim Courreges,
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Archifutures
At the same time, our cities are also victims of the Previous page: Proposal
conceptual inability and lack of vision exhibited by local for a public greenhouse in
Andreas-Hofer-Platz in Graz,
authorities, urban experts and decision-makers. This has Austria, 2016. Isometric
provoked the proliferation of indeterminate terrains, drawing © Plan Común
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Common Places
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Common Places
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The Bigger
Picture
Socially-informed
urban transformation
By Aleksandra Zarek
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The Bigger Picture
“Cohesive
regeneration cannot
always be delivered
through isolated
Socially-informed urban transformation
restorations of
The Bigger Picture
single buildings
By Aleksandra Zarek
without a larger
integrated strategy.”
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Archifutures
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The Bigger Picture
TO LAAJAVUORI
SCALE 1
Rautpohja Bay |
Recreational area
SCALES 2 - 3
RENTUKKA
Student Village Masterplan
(Scale 2)
(Scale 3)
SCALE 1
Kortepohja entry zone
TO CITY CENTRE &
UNIVERSITY
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The Bigger Picture
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The Bigger Picture
design solutions.
The main concept is based on opening up the ground
and top floors to a new atrium, flooded by the light from
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Archifutures
for the Student Village. This further showcases the Right: Rentukka exterior
proposal. © Aleksandra Zarek
consolidated character of the interventions across all
scales of development in the Kortepohja district, Student
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You have in your hands a new customized volume of Archifutures.
This version is unique, and it's the result of your interaction with
critically edited contents from thinkers, editors, activists, curators,
institutions, architects, bloggers, polemicists, and critics exploring
the future of architecture and cities.
dpr-barcelona + &beyond
October 2017
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Imprint
Archifutures
Volume 132 compiled by jean jaques
A field guide to the future of architecture
archifutures.org
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inadvertently omitted, please contact the publishers directly. Any corrections that
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