WEEK 3 WORKSHOP: Infrastructure, Strategy & Presence...

In this weeks tutorial our group discussed flexible, distributed, mobile and virtual strategies again, but this time with more relevance to political issues. Future issues in health, education, and public transport were the main topics debated, which we tried to somehow relate back to architecture:

Prior to this tutorial, I also got a chance to read ARCHITECTURE IS A DEVICE:

 “Architecture is a device” by Winy Maas is a very interesting read which I found to be quite helpful for our task at hand. When we initially got the brief to our project I thought to myself, what has this got to do with architecture? And it was a project I didn’t really have any interest in. After reading the paper though, it has become more apparent that architects these days aren’t just designers of ‘buildings’ but rather a group of people that can express and develop ideas in a range of areas. We are ‘designers’ of a number of things, as architecture can come in so many different forms:

“Architects work not only on buildings but on regional planning as well; they work within the fields of research and education, theatre, art installations, and political programs. This makes it possible to visualize potential at local, regional and global levels. It can offer alternatives to current tendencies. It can potentially suggest societal directions by literally constructing thoughts.” Pg. 41

I like the idea of being able to see the bigger picture and alternative views on issues, because that it was we are taught to do, and what we have been asked to do in this first project. The paper is implying that we are the designers of the future and have to think outside the box and act as a “medium” to do this:

“consequently when architecture is a device, its products can be understood as ‘instruments’ of general observations, as ‘messengers’ of urban transactions and criticism, as ‘facilitators’ for development and acceleration and as ‘communicators’ of wider processes and agendas. Architecture will become a medium again”. Pg. 45  

Overall the reading was quite helpful for our first project and helped me to open up to new ideas and think big for Australia.