Dwarf Village

Controlled Chaos


The brief is as follows:

Word length: 1,500 words. You WILL be marked down for going way over this.
Deadline: Monday February 8, 2010

The text will be written in the first person.

The object of the exercise, which we will call ‘Controlled Chaos’ is to look at and understand the ways in which architecture and interventions within it can act as a re-enforcing and as a critical tool of the operations and mechanisms of society at large. You should think carefully about how the control of people and their thoughts benefits social cohesion and how a relaxing of those controls (the carnival; comedy; the vacation) can be equally important. Throughout the essay, how these two things are expressed in architecture and objects. For example, you might look at traffic lights and how their presence allows traffic to flow as quickly and safely through a city as possible, but then imagine that if there were one day per year when the traffic lights were turned off, drivers would have to interract socially with each other and learn lessons about cooperation, attentiveness and courtesy.

The essay should be structured in two halves. Not necessarily literally - you don’t have to ‘do’ part 1 followed by ‘doing’ part 2, but the essay should give equal weight to both parts.

1. Objective: stick to facts

Using the texts we looked at as a base (but not quoting large passages from them), describe (explain how you observed it working) and analyse a method of architectural and/or psychological control that you observed during your trip to LA: this might be immigration at the airport; traffic restrictions; US restrictions on drinking in public places; the boundary between public and private space (say a gated community or the privatised public space of a shopping mall); Disneyland; or a privileging of private (automobile) transport of public (buses), etc. Let me know what you have selected before you begin the task, but, as Georges Perec would say, avoid trying to take on something so big that you have no chance of describing it properly.

2. Subjective: move to fantasy

Examine how this is a) beneficial to the socio-urban environment (ie. immigration prevents terrorists from entering the country or economic migrants ‘stealing’ jobs that could be taken by America’s own underprivileged classes) and b) how the rejection/undermining of it may be beneficial to that environment (ie. if America presented itself as a more welcoming and tolerant place at immigration people would be less inclined to terrorise it). And consider how this system could be improved (like in the traffic light example). 

We will have two sessions in January to help this task. The first will look at some of the texts we did not manage to cover this term; the second will be a discussion of your own texts and the directions they are taking. Contact me at any time if you have questions. And have fun with it.

Best wishes,

Mark