A Gender Imbalance

The topic of gender inequality within the technological world is nothing new or ground-breaking, but one that runs so deep within social structures that it deserves far more attention than it receives. Judy Wajcman’s piece titled ‘TechnoCapitalism meets TechnoFeminism’ gives a good insight into the history and current position of women in the IT industries. As Judith points out, technology is commonly designed by men, for men[1]. This unfortunate truth has only helped to strengthen the patriarchy, causing a distinct butterfly effect of gender inequality and exclusion still entrenched in modern day society.

Through the exclusion of women from what is commonly seen as ‘manly technologies’, a vicious cycle has appeared where women are often intimidated to learn because they are viewed as technologically ignorant, or not capable[2]. This in turn breeds a further lack of confidence.

This common viewpoint where women are seen as less capable with technology than men, led me to think of the gender imbalance within the architectural profession. Although the numbers of women entering into architectural education are equal to their male counterparts, 44% to 56% in 2010 respectively[3], these numbers do not carry through to the professional workplace (20.4% of registered architects were female in 2010)[4]. So why is still so difficult for women to break through a traditionally male dominated field when they are equally as educated and capable?

A large part of the answer could lie with the vicious cycle mentioned above. Architecture is a profession bound to other traditionally ‘manly’ professions, i.e. engineering and construction. It requires the architect to meet with the engineers, go to site, meet with the builders, and all the while act as the spokes person and right-hand-person to the client. Women are commonly viewed as less tech-savvy and therefore tend to start off on the back foot. It is an unfortunate reality that women often have to gain the respect of their male counterparts to be seen as competent[5]. A well-known female Australian architect named Kirsten Thompson once wrote:

“It got to the point where I would take an older male engineer with me because if it came from his mouth it was going to be more believable.”[6]

So where does the hope lie for all of those female architecture students whom endure the 5 gruelling years of architecture school? Is this an issue that needs to be brought into architectural education to be overcome? And are we really teaching students the reality of life after education?

Emma Crea

[1] Judy Wajcman, ‘TechnoCapitalism Meets TechnoFeminism: Women and Technology in a Wireless World, in Labour and Industry, vol. 16, No. 3, April-May 2006, p.9

[2] Judy Wajcman, ‘TechnoCapitalism Meets TechnoFeminism: Women and Technology in a Wireless World, in Labour and Industry, vol. 16, No. 3, April-May 2006, p.8

[3] Matthewson, Gill, Naomi Stead, and Karen Burns. “Women and Leadership in the Australian Architecture Profession: Prelude to a Research Project.” Women and Leadership in the Australian Architecture Profession: Prelude to a Research Project (2012): p.250. Web.

[4] Matthewson, Gill, Naomi Stead, and Karen Burns. “Women and Leadership in the Australian Architecture Profession: Prelude to a Research Project.” Women and Leadership in the Australian Architecture Profession: Prelude to a Research Project (2012): p.250. Web.

[5] Alexander, Harriet. “http://www.smh.com.au/executive-style/executive-women/mind-the-gap–the-gender-imbalance-in-architecture-20101004-163vt.html.&#8221; Editorial. The Sydney Morning Herald[Sydney] 04 Oct. 2010: n. pag. The Sydney Morning Herald. Fairfax Media Network. Web. 02 Nov. 2014. <http://www.smh.com.au/executive-style/executive-women/mind-the-gap–the-gender-imbalance-in-architecture-20101004-163vt.html&gt;.

[6] Alexander, Harriet. “http://www.smh.com.au/executive-style/executive-women/mind-the-gap–the-gender-imbalance-in-architecture-20101004-163vt.html.&#8221; Editorial. The Sydney Morning Herald[Sydney] 04 Oct. 2010: n. pag. The Sydney Morning Herald. Fairfax Media Network. Web. 02 Nov. 2014. <http://www.smh.com.au/executive-style/executive-women/mind-the-gap–the-gender-imbalance-in-architecture-20101004-163vt.html&gt;.

/3/ Strawberry tale

Few words about inconspicuous container of the ambiguous storage nature-jar of strawberry jam. In the polish movie “Seksmisja” where my post human landscape is located we watch the scene where the young woman working for the department of archeology is having an informal meeting with the old lady. We easily assume that the elder woman is the only one at that age in the community of young post human women of the perfectly maintained body resistant to the process of ageing. She comes from the past. Being very tight-lipped she is immediately shifting her behavior when the young woman is taking out the old-fashioned glass jar of the strawberry jam, which according to the plot of a movie, is an obvious symbol and relict of the previous epoch. Firstly, it is reminder of the traditional order, widely spread in polish households until now, where preparing and storing food has been always very female task. Its “feminine” character can be also certified according to the Lewis Mumford [1] who implies that occupations like cooking or brewing connected with the processes of growth, decay or preservation, has been always considered as female. As the inherent attributes of this processes things like bowls, pots, bins can be pointed out. Therefore the strawberry jam brings the old lady to the times of her youth – to the pre post human times. The jar occurs not only to be the container protecting the physical substance inside it, but it appears as the container of the memories, experiences and knowledge about times that passed away. She is starting to taste the jam recognizing acidity of the genuine fruits not existing in the post human reality, where no food is grown naturally. Quickly after that she is beginning to tell the stories about men – extinct sex in the post human reality depicted in the movie. Opening the jar of jam she is bringing up the tale about history, gender roles, sentiments, nostalgia and generation differences.

One might ask what is the point of trying to decide whether the containers are more feminine or masculine and whether it’s even possible to fairly do it. But maybe it is a matter of how we position this containers on the timeline-seems that the old-school jar of jam perfectly reflects its roots and the meaning when it is clearly said from which times it comes from. Maybe modern containers are losing its gender since gender differences are getting more and more blurred….

[1] Lewis Mumford , Technics and Human Development, 1966

 

KB

Judith

Judith reads the newspaper every morning. The headline said ‘contempt for women in the gaming industry is hardly anything new’. A game critic named Anita Sarkeesian had been threatened and it stood that contempt for women in the gaming industry was called #gamergate on social media. She did not understand what #gamergate meant. She wished to be a part of the social media. She thought it would help her to understand.

She called up her granddaughter; maybe she could help her to understand. They talked about other things as well, but most of the conversation was about this thing social media. When her granddaughter had tried to explain more about hash tags and the expression #gamergate Judith wished she never asked. It was almost too cruel to know about. Her granddaughter succeeded, however, to get Judith in a better mood. She told Judith about Glädjeflickorna (the girls with joy), a podcast made by three feminists. She said it’s like radio, but that Judith had to listen to it on the internet. She explained how podcasts has made it easier for women to raise their voices. Judith did find this satisfying so she was letting her granddaughter go back to what she did before she got this phone call.

In the evening the same day Judith and some of the other people at the home was watching television. It was Kalla Fakta on Tv4 and the day’s episode was called ‘Children in the Sex Market’. Judith felt that she had got too much bad information today already so she suggested that they should change to something else, but the others wanted to see it so she had to watch it or do something else. She stayed for a wail. They said that through the social media it is easy for children to get in contact with people who want to buy sex. Now she had to leave.

She had all kinds of emotions boiling inside of her. She felt that the social media must have been the worst invention ever. How could it be good to create a totally new world, and in this world make it possible to reproduce old conditions and let them escalate into this horror? Together with these strong feelings she, just as strong, wished to be a part of this social media. She felt so terrible left outside.

One of the care staff at the home had overheard parts of the conversation that Judith had with her granddaughter, so when she saw how frustrating Judith was she put on the podcast Glädjeflickorna for her in hope to give Judith some joy.

elsa jannborg

http://www.dn.se/spel/spel-hem/kvinnoforaktet-i-spelbranschen-ar-knappast-nagot-nytt/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6p5AZp7r_Q

http://www.tv4play.se/program/kalla-fakta?video_id=3005700

http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/c/0/9/c0901496f37a3b02/Gldjeflickorna_-_Avsnitt_1.mp3?c_id=7763720&expiration=1415621374&hwt=2314f9077225a608dd67ed0258e6f65d

with inspiration from

Judy Wajcman, ‘TechnoCapitalism Meets TechnoFeminism: Women and Technology in a Wireless World, in Labour and Industry, vol. 16, No. 3, April-May 2006, pp. 7-20.

4: The Network as tool for technology

When the darkness falls another animal awakes on it’s branch in an East Indian rainforest – or is it Gondwana? Every motion it feels, every move, appears to be heavy and light at the same time.

She cannot move faster, trapped in that body, trapped in space – it’s too dark to see where the forest ends, but she sees far enough. She feels the blood pumping in her arm, cold-warm, warm-cold. She feels a small sting in her belly from something she ate. Sometimes she feels incomplete, like she misses out on things, like she’s trapped in that body and her mind wants’ to move fast between the trees or out in space. Her talent is her patience; this is usually not how she feels. Go, go and gone you where, itchy feeling of inadequacy.

She looks into the darkness, every light mirrored twice at the back of her eyes making her see further than most. She spots a grasshopper some branches away and slowly starts to move one of her arms.

 

 

The Slow Loris moves according to its name almost in slow motion. [1] The half-monkey is related to the Lesser bushbabies and to be able to compete for food with them the Loris specialized in eating poisonous animals. To be able to handle the poison it digests the food much slower which in turn prevents it from using too much energy, therefore the Loris mostly just sit still or sleep and only when needing to find food it moves its slow motion-like body movements. The Loris shows that evolution doesn’t always make the best of everything but only as far as it needs to. Sometimes a mutation makes a species turn in other directions and sometimes they can’t even adapt.

While humanity is the most adapting it is also the most exploiting. In the film Interstellar we experience a fictive future where humans have exploited the earth and slowly it (the earth) becomes useless and dangerous. [2] We’ve become too many, wanting too much and need to search for other planets to colonize. Judy Wajcman reflects on changes in the way feminist theorists looks upon technology where feminists have debated “whether the problem lay in men’s domination of technology or whether the technology is in some sense inherently patriarchal”.[3] I concluded part 3 with the idea to choose sleep instead of technology where sleep rather signified a different view on technology than often chosen. I meant that action might not always be preferable, depending on what the goal is. The problem here is that the motives decides what direction technology takes. “Social scientists increasingly recognize that technological innovations is itself shaped by the social circumstances within which it takes place”, therefore technology cannot be seen as something neutral and must be related to its social context. [4] At the same time nature is far from perfect, as can be seen in the way evolution sometimes takes strange turns. But even though nature might not be perfect it always relates to its surrounding environment in a much more sensitive way than humans. With that I don’t want to sound like a speaker for the “ecofeminism” referred to in Waicmans text but rather to seek a more sensitive approach in the way we relate to the environment in which technology is created and activated. [5] We don’t want to end up in the Interstellar-situation, but at the same time if we do (which might be a consequence of our own actions or just evolutionary changes) we have the ability to seek solutions through technology. To reject technology as malevolent as the 1970´s feminists did might then not be a good, or even desired solution.[6]

What I aim at is rather our relationship with technology than a rejection of it. As “Industrial technology might have had a patriarchal character but digital technologies, based on brain rather than brawn, on networks rather than hierarchy, herald a new relationship between women and machines” we see a change in what purpose technology might gain. [7]

The Tardigrade operates in different sites and adapt to those sites if needed. They operate slow and almost invisibly (to us at least). I imagine their networks being a mirror neuron network where they all mirror each others feelings and operate according to everyone else in the group – but as individuals. This could also be seen as a site – a site for mutual sympathy and consideration. This is what me and my feminist friends call “kind rooms” (Snälla rum). A kind room is a space of mutual acceptance: A prestige-less site where feelings are above rationality, where appreciation and laughter generate projects, and encouragement is more important than winning. Our feminist design tool is to create a common space where we can find strength and security and encourage each other to explore un-known fields of knowledge. The Tardigrade here becomes my agent, a carrier of values (that it might not possess depending on view). It operates in different sites in a kind of passive but constant way, but it also creates sites through being there. It creates climates for understanding in a place that could otherwise just be seen from a point of property value. On the Slow Lori I project what happens when someone else decides your destiny or your place to be. How stuck you feel when being excluded. This understanding of social climate might be a way to approach technology and see beyond traditional methods for how to do technology and what technology might be. The network then becomes a possibility to open up technology for those at present excluded.

/Tove Grönroos

Footnotes:
[1] http://www.svtplay.se/video/2386110/varldens-natur/naturens-drivkrafter-avsnitt-3-vastra-ghats-i-indien 2014-11-08

[2] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0816692/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 2014-11-08

[3] Judy Wajcman, ‘Feminist Theories of Technology’ in Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2009, pp. 10

[4] Waicman, pp. 15

[5] Waicman, pp. 13

[6] Waicman, p. 11

[7] Waicman p. 12

4: The parts in my theater is the theater of my parts

In this course we have talked a lot about how the individual is being re-produced over and over again by the other. The thing/part is constituted by the reflection upon other things/parts and are intertwined in a larger matrix of bits and pieces. This relationship is something that I find interesting and is a possible connection between gender – technology theories and the work we do in studio #5

Cute fit

This relationship could be exemplified as a very straightforward architectural topic, the one of how things fit or don´t fit together. How one bit is connected to the other, physical – materialized, and what this connection or non-connection is doing to the individual bits. In my project, for example, we are dealing with a connection that we like to call cute fit. The cute fit could be described as a connection between to bits that are not completely accurate. The bits does´nt really fit into each other. There is small caps of inaccuracies generating spaces and figures. It is a connection that is trying to connect but not quite being able to in the stereotype/ accurate / tight fit. Perhaps it is possible to see this connection/ joint as the one that is doing the not aspected / wanted / It is the not so logically justifiable solution

This pieces / bits / parts / things / objects is being formulated by the larger network of information / bits / parts. The individual bits is effecting the other generating a kind of call & respons-matrix. One object mirroring / reflecting its characteristics upon the other. These bits are not really forming a hierarchy but more of a flat network where each individual part possesses the possibility of taking any position in the network. There is a fluidity that relate to the way identity is formulated today, as Judy Wajcman writes about post-traditional network society. Identity is formulated by our consumption rather that our social relations of work. The social networks are more elaborate and if we could talk about post-internet we see an individual being constituted in a non-physical environment where your avatar can adapt what characteristic you choses. I can choose to be man, transgender, woman, young, old, pink haired or blond and so on. The old binary system is being played out by a more fluid identity that has the possibility of endless change. Post-internet is offering a new way of understanding what the individual is. We could perhaps draw a paralell to how cultural expressions today appears to be more and more abstract. The old sub-cultures are replaced by a multiplicity of expressions combined in different ways, maybe we could talk about a kind of ”Allkonstverk” ”Gesamtkustwerk”

Perhaps we can use this ideas to challenge architecture on not only a theoretical level but also on a physical level.

What is the achtitect in this network, a recipe maker or a ‘world’ – representer? Maybe a carpenter or a machine operator.

How is the architecture materialized and what do the tools do in the network. If the pieces / parts / bits is in a flux the tools and method can just as easily as the thing being produced become the output architecture.

What is the physical response to post-traditional network society?

/Kristina Sundin

Posthuman Landscape: The Underground

When the surface of land is overcrowded and we still have to relate to the force of gravity, the underground became the solution for infrastructural systems as the subway/underground/metro, drainage and numerous other circuit lines. But as for today – western society year 2014, living underneath the surface is seen as a place of decay.

In fiction or as future visions, the underground is often illustrated as a dystrophic solutions while utopian visions are more often set in the air. This might be since it rule out one fundamental condition of the photosynthesis:

Carbon dioxide + electron donor + light energy → carbohydrate + oxidized electron donor

Without the sun and light energy this equation of life is impossible. It would affect some primal parts of our well-being.

 

The underground for living
But there are settlements throughout history that has opposed this theory. In the eastern part of Turkey lies the ancient region of Cappadocia which is known for its many underground communities which could host up till 20 000 inhabitants. Why they settled underground or when they did is yet unknown, but there are theories. Many of which is based on the fear of one external threat weather they were human-, climate- or space invasions are to be argued

According to one of these, in “ancient astronaut theory”, the highest spirit of worship in the monotheistic Iranian religion Zoroastrianism (that might have been the religion of the region at that time), Ahura Mazda – who is from another world – had predicted an approaching ice age and wanted to protect the people of the region. Very similar to the tale of Noah.

The porous mass of the volcanic rock has a beneficial isolating effect for this purpose. There is a major pendulum variation in this region’s climate. It can go from being – 30 Celsius degrees in the winter to + 30 degrees Celsius in the middle of the summer.

Another theory is that the people of the underground cities were the first Christian inhabitants of the region, and had to hide and that forced them underground.

A lot of the design of some of the cities implies that there were some outside threat. In one city, the passages between the floor planes were possible to shut from the inside. Blocking someone on the outside to get in.

 

This brought me to the contemporary underground systems made for human use: the subway/metro/underground. A space not made because of an extern threat. We are not forced to take shelter but rather forced to turn to the underground in lack of space for all modern necessity. It might be the one space where traditions and normative construction no longer applies since the rules of life (the photosynstesis) already is broken.

“Underground was a catalog of city sites that are clues to systems we completely take for granted until they break down, and then we say, “Hey, how come I don’t have any electricity? What’s wrong with the water?” We are so dependent on those systems, and that’s what motivated that book. I did the book because I wanted to say to people, “Hey, look again. This is amazing stuff. We all count on it.” I mean, I don’t know what we’d do without this stuff, but we just completely take it for granted.”

The Boston Underground Ilustrated in 1976 by David Macaulay and later presented in the quote above, year 2001 on teachingbooks.net via Socks Studio.

Malin Wester

5) Depression and the Post Human: Daniel van Schaik

— (Technology + Humans) x Evolution = ? —

Scenario 1:

October 4, 2036
Department of Artificial Intelligence
Center for Clinical Research – Shanghai

Richard deleted my disease, I am finally happy!
When I rose from bed this morning I felt nothing holding me back.
As I ate breakfast I looked out the kitchen window and saw the world in a new light, one where I mattered and my darkness had been erased.
I kissed my gorgeous children goodbye; their glowing smiles broke the creases in my face, I no longer see them as a burden.
I will never let myself down again… The car won’t start… No matter I will order a cab, a conversation on the way to work will do me good anyway!
I can hear my coworkers talk about the incident, but I am only imagining things because they would never say a bad thing about me.
I love my job!
I wonder what I will eat for dinner? Chicken? Pasta? … Soup?!
I love soup!

Scenario 2:

October 4, 2036
Department of Artificial Intelligence
Center for Clinical Research – Shanghai

Richard spoke to me today about the incident.
He told me I have severe depression, a disease that is currently attacking the core of my personality software.
He told me that I can have it removed in less than 5 minutes, but it is painful and a positive outcome is not guaranteed.
The thought of removing a piece of my brain scares me, but I can’t go on living like this.
My alternative seems to be a mixture of psychotherapy and mild doses of electroshock treatment.
Richard informs me that these alternatives will not remove the disease, but they will reduce the severity and help me to live with my new “disease.”
I’m happy that Richard cares, but I’m not sure he understands.
I slept in this morning, so now its 6:30pm and I’m staring into a bowl of soup.
I hear my daughter laugh in the other room, I smile.
Pumpkin soup is my favorite, but now its cold.

4) Depression and the Post Human: Daniel van Schaik

— The more Intelligent we get, the more accepting we become —

 

“The world I believe in is one where we’re measured by our ability to overcome adversities, not avoid them. The world I believe in is one where I can look someone in the eye and say, “I’m going through hell,” and they can look back at me and go, “Me too,” and that’s okay, and it’s okay because depression is okay. We’re people. We’re people, and we struggle and we suffer and we bleed and we cry, and if you think that true strength means never showing any weakness, then I’m here to tell you you’re wrong. You’re wrong, because it’s the opposite. We’re people, and we have problems. We’re not perfect, and that’s okay.

 

So we need to stop the ignorance, stop the intolerance, stop the stigma, and stop the silence, and we need to take away the taboos, take a look at the truth, and start talking, because the only way we’re going to beat a problem that people are battling alone is by standing strong together, by standing strong together.”

-Kevin Breel[1]

 

The subconscious is a powerful mechanism. From the moment we are born we begin to observe and absorb the social structures set by society. As children we watch our parents and discern how they interact with the social mold. Then as we mature we start to look to our peers, teachers and employers as martyrs for what we can achieve. Falsely constructed Male and female roles are still engrained in our lives today, and as a child grows he/she takes on these grouse misconceptions. Males get a head start when it comes to pursuing a career because to them “that’s what men do.” Females on the other hand receive a different first impression, one that centers on a home-life rather than a work-life.

 

Using the construction industry as an example, a woman born in the 1930’s may have subconsciously accepted the fact that men controlled the workforce and therefore decided to steer away from a career in that field. Her parents’ most likely fit the mold of a working husband and full-time mother; the male works to bring home the money whilst the female worked longer hours, doing everything she can to keep the family home comfortable.

 

This dynamic is still true of many households today and it comes down to the lack of choice given to both males and females to pursue their life goals or ambitions. The roles of both men and women set by society force each gender into a particular position and without precedents, both genders have to work particularly hard to break through the glass ceiling. Thankfully today, many women have already paved the way for other females to follow into industries that used to be dominated by men.

 

Previously the main tool used to control the gender singularity within these industries was fear; fear of being incapable, fear of being shunned, fear of being held back and fear of wasting time. However as more and more women enter the workforce this fear diminishes and those previous ‘home based’ notions engrained into young women begin to shift. Thus, every “career woman” becomes a precedent for young females to chase the profession they have always been capable of succeeding in, they reduce the fear and enable self-confidence.

 

People with depression are equally shunned and held to the outside of the construction industry. Granted that increased awareness has helped to soften the overly abrasive industry and make it easier for women and sufferers of depression to survive, it still has a long way to go before it could be considered equal and fair. The self proclaimed “boys club,” “where only the strong survive,” has for a long time ignored the existence of depression.

 

Unfortunately this tendency to ignore the problem and push it under the rug has meant that those who work in an industry with some of the highest rates of depression[2] are forced to suffer in isolation. The expectation to always be strong and energetic is exhausting and it either pushes people out of the industry or restricts their ability to pursue higher positions. The general belief is that the depressed cannot survive in its cutthroat environment so they lack the confidence to climb the ladder. However, if the industry is so rife with depression, then its fair to assume that many successful employers and employees within construction companies have, at some point, battled depression. Therefore its so much that people with depression are incapable of success, it’s more so that the culture in the industry forces them to hide it.

 

Like young women entering the construction industry, the depressed need precedents to increase their own self-confidence. Women are more than capable of doing any job a man can do and so to are those who are susceptible to depression. Unlike the case of females needing to forge new ground in male dominated industries, for the depressed its not about finding precedents because we know they exist, its more about removing the shame and making depression a part of normal conversation. We should expect our coworkers to be sad as much as we expect them to be happy, for many, being depressed is a normal human emotion. It’s not something we should be ashamed of; and in a post-human society we will no doubt understand this fact.

 

 

Notes:

[1] “Kevin Breel: Confessions of a Depressed Comic,” http://www.ted.com, Accessed 22 Oct, 2014.

 

[2] “The Challenge of Suicide in the Construction Industry,” www.headsup.org.au, Accessed 22 Oct, 2014. http://www.headsup.org.au/news/2014/06/26/the-challenge-of-suicide-in-the-construction-industry

The memory boy

The memory boy

My container is the delay pedal ”Memory boy” by the company electro harmonix. It is an analog delay pedal used to generate a specific sound. You have an input signal witch is being recorded in the container ( the delay pedal ). This recording can be made in different ways. At first tape loops where used where you manually adjusted the length of the loops. Some time later on you could start to adjust the speed of the loops and the read – & write – heads. This will give you different results and you can control the output sound. This is the tape delay. In another example they use rotating magnetic drum as a storing medium. With this techique the audio quality of the recording in the effect would lack in quality over time. Other devices used spinnig magnetic discs.
You also have the solid state delays, the ”memory boy is of this type. Instead of using moving parts as a record/play medium they use a specific circuit called Bucket Brigade Delay (BBD) The analog signal is moving trough a series of capacitors. The name comes from the act of passing a bucket of water in a line of people when taking out fires.
There is a analog to analog process. The playback might be changed in different ways, with time and other things but the end result is still analog.
Digital delays where the analog sound is being translated by a analog-to-digital-converter, end up with a digitallized end result.
You have a analog to digital process, and when listening you can find a digital to analog process. 1: analog to analog to ear ( analog ) 2: analog to digital to ear ( analog )

The end result, the sound played back to your ears, is a result of a performance of a series of processes in relation to material specificities ( the original audio input ) and the environment/ room/ speaker where the sound is materialized.

In order to control the end result you can choose

1: Matter ( the inout sound ) 2: Adding matter specificities ( create a material with analog/digital processes ) 3: Choose a form to perceive this material in ( an environment ) = A specific sound-being generating a specific environment with the chosen room, a specific subject/environment-composite?

1: Matter ( Stone ) 2: Adding matter specificities ( create a material by crushing stones into different sizes ) 3: Choose a form to perceive this material in ( Make a very large pile on a field ) = A skiing slope / a shading hill / a home to new plants, a composite environment

1: Matter ( A group of 10 people ) 2: Adding matter specificities( 7 people suffers from illness, 3 people are mmedically trained ) 3: Choose a form to perceive this material in ( An empty square ) = An emergency situation in need of medical equitment, a composite environment/situation/a course of events

1: Matter ( a bowl ) 2: Adding matter specificities ( Its made of plastic) 3: Choose a form to perceive this material in ( its filled with milk ) = Possibility to drink a bowl of milk/ a bowl of milk/ a composite of materials and objects with specific contexts and performance, a network/ composite of specificities?

/Kristina Sundin

Containers

Response 03.

Depending on how free one chooses to interpret the meaning of containers, everything could be a container or be contained: the front cover of a book, the cabinet, the purse, the cover of a CD etc.. In most cases the purpose of that kind of containers are to hold and protect whats in it. But the most fundamental (at least in the evenings and during the night) are perhaps our homes. It protects us from what’s outside.

Or does it? Does it really protect us? Or does the walls prevent outside forces and movement to integrate with us? In other words – how do the way architects design our homes effect how we live our lives? I remember reading somewhere that in the history the kitchen normally were smaller than the livingroom, and in an attempt to strengthen womens position in their homes, some architect instead designed the kitchen to be larger than the livingroom (since traditionally women’s position were in the kitchen, and men’s in the livingroom). Even though this attempt maybe actally just strengthened the stereotypical genderroles rahter than womens, it was an attempt to change structures through design.

It is against my belief that architect’s can and should control what kind of life that occurs in/around their work, I think that that gives too much power to the architectural profession alone. After all, they are in most cases not the one’s that will inhabit what they are designing. Sofia wrote that when we fill a container we pour into its emptiness. An empty jug has no purpose, other than to look good (?). A home doesen’t furfill it’s purpose until it’s filled with life, and if the architect is the expert on how to create that kind of ”container”, isn’t the dweller the expert on what’s it going to be filled with?

Plan from late 1940s.

/ Sofi