“There is nothing you can dominate as easily as a flat surface of a few square meters; there is nothing hidden or convoluted, no shadows, no ‘double entendre’. In politics as in science, when someone is said to “master” a question, or to ‘dominate’ a subject, you should normally look for the flat surface that enables mastery. (a map, a list, a file, a census, the wall of a gallery, a card-index, a repertory)” -Bruno Latour I must confess, during the limited time in which I had to research these structures, I did not master their form and envelope in totality, as this would be impossible. It would take much more time, resources, and a period of ethnographic research to truly understand the Plattenbauten on Annenstraße. However, every piece of knowledge I had obtained on the subject could be viewed on a flat plane, including my sketchbook, my drawings and notes – in Latour’s words, free to be ‘dominated’, ‘modified’, ‘displaced’ and ‘reproduced’ in time by myself and others. By approaching my sketchbook as a research tool, the fundamental and basic elements of architecture can be recorded, composition, thresholds, massing, and form.
Through this methodology of context-led research, the ‘existing’ is a permanent backdrop, with the proposal laid on top. This can be seen through the strong red tones depicting a new democratic realm within the Plattenbau, draped over/ woven into the grey tones of old. The drawings were created to accompany dialogue with my texts on democratic co-housing environments and to provide a method of investigation and a focus of study between myself and peers. These inscriptions were to be the centre of every discussion, a common language between engineers, environmental design experts, tutors, classmates and most importantly, the occupants of the Plattenbau who will view the research online at the end of Semester III. These collaborative discussions regarding the drawings and sketches occurred each week through the various critiques both in person and virtually, with lecturers and peers. Established layers from weeks gone by were built upon, through first impressions from visiting critiques and references of drawing and literature offered by more permanent colleagues, lecturers, and students. Each week, the elevations, plans and sections of the Plattenbau blocks would shift and manoeuvre, constantly influenced by not only my own thought process, but the knowledgeable contributions of others around me. Throughout Semester II, the project grew from these original research drawings of the existing to the proposed concept of what the structure could be. |
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“Where do you place the angry clients, and their somewhat conflicting demands? Where do you insert the legal and city planning constraints? Where do you locate the budgeting and different budgeting options? Where do you put the logistics of the many successive trades? Where do you situate the subtle evaluation of skilled versus unskilled practitioners? Where do you archive the many successive models that you had to modify so as to absorb the continuous demands of so many conflicting stakeholders...?” -Bruno Latour |
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