IoT – The Internet of Territories
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Territories are the notion that organises consumption and production in space and time. The thesis is a journey to unmask economic, environmental and political complexity in order to re-calibrate the criticality of architecture within/between territories.
WHY
Territories are the notion that organises consumption and production in space and time. The tale of architecture is embedded in the planetary systems could be traced back to Fuller’s idea of the planet as a relational closed system with finite amount of resources, and we are all tided together regardless different continents and jurisdictions; the earth as the one landmass. With the rise in population, technology and energy consumption, they have triggered Doxiadis’s theory on Ekistics, where nature, anthropos, society, shells, and networks have become the dominating factors in settling humanity and planning the planet. Buildings and territories at presents are in a complex situation where the diagnostic of the singular and the cause of its existence cannot be fully understood. As Keller Easterling described, the shadowy network of spatial and infrastructural technologies, the spatial products, that lubricated by the prevailing political ideologies, operating behind the screen, offshore and onshore, have driven a new kind of broadband urbanism that constituted the globalising world we are now situating. The higher degree we are connected transcontinentally the more consequential effects we produced. The more knowledge we have produced the more capability we possess to make these global transformation or advancement possible. And at the same time, these global supply chains and networks have accelerated the earth to an almost irreversible condition. The urgency to mitigate or to solve the clash between the atmosphere, biosphere, geosphere, and the modern world system that we have constructed is indisputable. With our capabilities of destructing the nature, we can surely use such a collective capacity into something constructive. The thesis is a journey to unmask and reshape the economic, environmental and political complexity in order to re-calibrate the criticality of architecture within/between territories. Through investigating and re-mapping the relational narratives that are hidden beneath the naked eyes, to imagine and speculate alternative scenarios for the near future. Through mappings, moving drawings and scenarios to visualise the hidden and re-imagined agendas as an archive for the future.
WHAT
To narrate the thesis through a physical proxy, with an interest in the hinterlands or the enclaves in Asia, as there are often somewhere within/between these areas we could find the powerhouse or the back of house of a global supply chain that challenging the landscape in day to day basis. The thesis will use real world issues as the point of departure and hack into these issues, networks and chains from a local scale to see how the outcome of the imagined architectural events would be emerged and influenced in global scale. The site has not been finalised but it will be determined by the potential of a productive architectural scenarios that could be happened/imagined from the site, through unfolding and engaging with the network of materials, forces and spaces, to illustrate an alternative way to argue the concept of architecture. One of the possible site could be the Gobi Desert which is situating between Mongolia and China. One might think of the desert is just a desolate, harsh and remote territory that has nothing but emptiness. Under the sea of sand there are lots of resources that have been monitored by the governments and international giants. This remote landscape, these coal mines are the powerhouse of most of the China’s new cities. These sites and resources are the pillars of the modern world we are all living. If oil fields have brought Middle East a great prosperity, could the coal mines and gold mines in Mongolia offer the same or similar effect like the Middle East did? With the expansion of Gobi Desert at the speed of 3,600km2 per year towards northern China, it forced China to build the Green Great Wall to against desertification and to maintain its territories, could Mongolia uses desertification as a chip or a currency or a bargain to take advantage from? Could sand or desert or other extreme conditions be managed within the Mongolia territory and uses such strategy for a geopolitical and international resources exchange? But how can/should it be demarcated and administrated in the context of desert? Apart from physically and repeatedly putting flags or structures on the ground, or relying on the perpetual updating coordinates within the GPS system to define territories; when territories are being defined by geographical locations and environmental conditions, as well as international relations, how could/should they be looked like?
HOW
The thesis will focus on developing a personal language in mapping to represent an interrelated networks and scenarios to explore the emerging technologies in relation to ecological conditions. A short film which consist of animated digital drawings/mappings/collages, rendered objects, and footages recorded from reality, etc., will be the medium to represent these dynamic correlations and potentials other than mappings. Plans, sections, axonometrics will also be produced as supplementary materials. Step 1: (before semester) Begin to site research and analysis to map out the flows, rules and supply chain that happening in/around the site in relation to the broader scale, and compile a preliminary research booklet. Also to test out video editing/framing, etc. techniques, as well as mapping techniques and aesthetics. Step 2: (for Review 1.0) Further research and mapping to reveal the existing networks of reactions and patterns of connections from the site to the territorial/global scale. Begin the set out the screenplay and actors (sites, networks, objects and agents) for the final motion graphics/film. Step 3: (for Review 2.0) Continue research mapping and continue to develop a sustained argument for the approaches of interventions that could use the site as an agent to demonstrate the transformation and generation of new qualities and patterns of connections that could interact with the global networks and actors. Site visit could be happened during Reading Week. (site filming, documentation, etc.) Step 4: (for Review 3.0) Continue design mapping and intervention development in full detail elaboration. Argument and strategies development by looking into the smaller scale interventions. Motion graphics/film production will be continued (moving drawings and 3D renders, etc.) Step 5: (for Final Review) Refine and finalise all the print outs. Final production of design and drawings (A1s). Finalise the motion graphics/film (editing, touch up, etc.) and scenes extraction from it (A2s).
Bibliography: Theory: Techniques: Projects: |
