Oct '08 - May '09
[NS]
A totalitarian government has subversively gain power over the country. Tighten their grasp on society further they utilise an ID Card system under the guise to protect and benefit every citizens life. The truth is that they utilise this technology as a means to imprison us all in their world. The government blames and persecute a sect of society for the faults our world has to further their cause.
The thesis involves the incorporation of hidden spaces for the persecuted counter-culture, where their true identity can exist behind illusionist surfaces and deceptive contours right under the noses of those who persecute them.
The following four images introduce the concept of hidden spaces in my Thesis project. An introduction showing part of a study of priest holes, a situation where hidden spaces could be integrated based on historical events, a form study comparing where people want to be in tall buildings from Ken Shuttleworth’s ‘Swiss Re Building’ and Vortex projects which inform the design diagram and finally a sketch scheme integrating hidden spaces within a proposed juxtaposed programme.
10 Comments
Nice project -- check out T.A.Z by Hakim Bey (if you haven't already) and obviously Delueze and Foucoult
the irony of course is that if it is drawn in section, plan elevation and you were to take the project to the illogical conclusion of being built, the rooms wouldn't be secret or hidden. the idea of privacy must be explored. privacy ain't what it used to be. people don't really want or expect it anymore. every phone has a camera. every drunken sororiaty girl face is plastered on facebook or myspace or both. exposure means meaning. being seen signifies your importance in the world. otherwise, crawl into a priest hole. now of course, in 1970's argentina or present day myanmar, one may want to anonymity. one may need to hide. but in the world today privacy has been redefined. privacy is for the lonely, indigent and forgotten.
Hey vado....If you read the preface, you would see that the project takes place in a dystopian future, where, unlike Facebook, being exposed is not a good thing. Therefore, in the case of this project, privacy is fundamental to safety and protection. However, you are right in the fact that if these spaces are in the drawings, then they are not so secret. My question is, how can they be constructed secretly amongst the constructions of the totalitarian govn't?
[Also, pardon my earlier misspellings....Deleuze and Foucault]
Maybe the architect is really a Double Agent. Maybe he assists La Resistance in hopes to offer an alternative to a totalitarian government. Then again maybe by allowing the chance of a 'choice' he is actually helping to secure the status quo i.e. the permanence of that government. 'Choice is an illusion, created between those with power, and those without'...
i would imagine that in a dystopian future it wouldn't be that easy to get a building permit. nor would it be that easy to build secret interstitial cavities in buildings since the entire scaffolding of such a government is built on fear, intimidation and spying. good luck though.
Vado, I guess it might not be meant to be built, maybe there's a type of architecture thats not meant to be built....maybe its inly meant to ridiculize a subject? like a Continious Monument maybe. Maybe this guy should say what his intention is. Does he want to build this thing? or sell the idea to a developer?
As someone who grew up in a country where ID cards are mandatory, I do not see ID cards as a form of control. A passport can now track your movements between countries, a credit card can track your purchases and your loyalty card lets big companies know what you buy. Throw in our reliance on things such as email, using search engines and using the internet and lo and behold we are already here in the dystopian future sans Bladerunner.
Can you conceive of a scenario where a totalitarian government would arise based on our current global situation? I would've thought totalitarianism would be effectively voted in as governments begin to close its borders to conserve what little natural resources they have such as water and food.
If you haven't seen them, Equilibrium and V for Vendetta is kind of what I am envisaging your totatlitarian government to look like.
I think we have been in fact been living under a totalitarian regime all along. There is basically no option available but to comply.
I am not trying to discount the project. I am just asking a few questions. This project actually is in line with some recent conversations I have had with friends about changing values in regard to privacy, anonymity, significance and its obverse.
Vado, I am not sure this is in line with what you are interested in terms of anonymity, but I have to posted because I coincidently stumbled with it while reading some articles on stand alone complexes....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group)
http://www.whyweprotest.net/en/
An funnily enough the members wear V for Vendetta's Guy Fawkes masks, much in line with Jordan's post
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