Prisoners of Conciousness

It is no secret that materialism thrives in today’s society, especially in the American culture. We are in love with material things. These things are becoming part of us; at the same time they are becoming less material and more digital. For instance the cell phone is a constant reminder that we need to be connected, fulfilling a primal desire of belonging to a tribe. For a lot of us our lives revolve around being connected to these digital tribes. We are being controlled by this technology.

Since Google announced the release of “Google glasses” there has been a lot of theories and speculation on the potential of this technology. As consumers we are lazy, we love commodities, the allure of technological advancements to make our lives easier is overpowering us. As technology evolves it will become more intrusive disguised as comfort.  Soon voice commands are not going to be convenient enough and we will need to be wired directly through our brains to access digital information. It will be the beginning of singularity, the cyborg era.

Everybody is going to be walking around with accessibility to a database directly from our brains. The mere action of thinking will bring up access to infinite amount of information available through the Internet. This of course will come with the deserved dangers of misuse of this technology. In the same spirit as today cyber criminals hack into websites to steal credit card information, there will be hackers accessing our brains for different purposes. Torture, pleasure, escapism, fetishes, education and even imprisonment will be delivered through manipulation of our minds.

Recent political events (see the NSA fiasco) have showed us that governments are not timid about manipulation of technology and information to meet a certain agenda. It is irrelevant whether their intent is motivated by justice or evil, the point is that this is already happening. They will try to rationalize this intrusiveness as a means to a justice adequate for the time. This will come as imprisonment of consciousness, the restraining of freedom through hacking the human brain. 

Hefty campaign donations will still lead to federal contracts and private companies will still capitalize on the business of imprisonment. The typology of prisons will dramatically change. There will no longer be the necessity for monolithic walls enclosing a community of criminals. Natural disasters caused by global warming will destroy the cityscape. There will still be a need to where to store the bodies of the prisoners, an incubator where they will be “connected” to their respective sentence.

The fast and extreme changes in climate will force these incubators to be flexible and able to relocate at the drop of a dime. They will attach like parasites to any convenient remains of buildings. This architecture will have to be pushed away, far from the sight of the mass population. It will constantly be morphing, moving, re-inventing but never forgiving. 

Image by Hector Aramburo

On Form

Here at OHMS we are masochists, we like to engage on senseless debates that are better left for the assholes in academia who love to wear black clothing. While reminiscing on some shitty critiques during school that actually sparked up interesting conversations Hector and I had a discussion on the importance of form in architecture. I won’t bore you with his insane argument, maybe you can ask him, but I will tell you mine.

The functionality of form has developed over the years; as designers today we have infinite amounts of techniques on how to create form. Is it a reaction to the surroundings or is it designed from inside out to accommodate the necessity of occupants? Is it an algorithm or pure artistic interpretation? As humans we have to engage in a connection to the environment, in essence the way we interact with each other is affected by our surroundings, in an urban setting more often than not these surroundings are buildings. The performance and interaction of this connection is very important for social existence.

Form refers to shape, visual appearance, or configuration of an object. At its core the definition of form is the shape of an object. The use of form in architecture goes beyond merely aesthetics of a building; it represents the body of that piece of work as opposed to space, which represents the soul. Not only does form determines what a building looks like but there are different philosophies behind formal expression, there is an intention to create feelings, attitude, and atmosphere, in a nut shell form influences human emotion. 

Piranesi

The Image Of...

The expression of architecture has slowly been evolving, or regressing in actuality, to a more cohesive and conventional practice. The Ideas of symbolic production, whose primary task is to construct concepts and subject positions rather than making the plausible, is slowly dying. As part of a newer generation we are forgetting that architecture is fundamentally a question of the: what is, what might be, and how it can be, it’s ultimately a blank projection open to the imagination. Architecture is limited and crippled by the build properties of a building, in this aspect architectural research is failing. The need to exalt the capacity of the imagination to create new images is crucial to break away from the convention of what architecture has become.

An unconventional Time line. by Hector Aramburo

A Chinese Summer

This past summer I went on a study abroad program to China. It was an interesting experience to say the least; it was a different atmosphere than what I had anticipated. At an urban setting there is a lot of resemblance to Mexico City. The street vendors, the public vs. private space re appropriation battle, the ingenious adaptations to create new markets, all of these things that seem to root from the economic issues that prevail in both of these countries start to shape the urban fabric accordingly. One of the most obvious differences is in regards to public space, in Mexico the space is taken over or occupied at convenience and it transforms through time, in China there is a clear invisible boundary stating that a lot of these spaces are off limits and it is well respected among the Chinese population.  What is most interesting about the Chinese city is that there seems to be no density gradient, one minute one could be surrounded by high rise buildings and just a 10 minute drive could be the difference between Starbucks and rural farming.

Some people argue that China is where most of us as architects are going to be working sooner or later, the rapid growth of their cities is undeniable and the fearless approach of the government when it comes to building is astonishing. This notion of super-fast design and production is what China has become to be known for, but among the young architecture students there was a different feeling. As opposed to the fast paced designers that seem to be prevailing in the major cities there is a more conscious approach in the universities. The Chinese students have a grounded sensibility and respect when designing. This became almost a juxtaposition with the American students; the Americans were eager to produce the most work possible and the Chinese students were more interested in setting up a discourse among all of us to try understand history of site in order to respect it, living conditions and more importantly to truly know and understand the people living in the area.

Photo by Miguel A. Reyes