MP rant
How you visualise, in form and space, the abstract, intangible and complicated stuff that drives economics? I have no idea. I’ve been stuffing my head with readings in economics, network theory, stuff about commercial building typologies and architecture theory, and then trying to condense these ideas into a thesis, and realise them into a design for a building. The above diagram is the first sketch from a notebook for a draft script to try and tie some of these ideas together. Currently re-writing the script, will post a draft soon…
RANT:
Reinterpreting the Tower typology in buildings for financial institutions
STYLE & STRUCTURE
Towers for financial institutions have historically have been symbols of power, of stability, “greed is good”. Stylistically, they tend to aim to instill notions of stability and permanence, using ‘rational’ orders (classicism, modernism). While stylistically/visually they aim to be rational and structurally honest/expressed, these buildings, with their typical core-slab-columngrid, tend to be structurally irrational and excessive. What if this could be turned on its head, and a new tower created, one which stylistically expresses the inherent instability of a financial system, but is structurally thrift?
The Building as a diagram of economic conditions/fluctuations
A MACHINE THAT MAKES THE LAND PAY (Cass Gilbert)…OR…???
If, as Gilbert states, a tower’s objective is to earn the greatest possible return for its owners, what happens to all that rentable space when the economic situation busts? Could the space be used for something else? Could it become derelict? Could the program emphasis change as the economic situation fluctuates? Tying back in with some of the network theory reading, this could be tested with a CA ruleset, but what would the rules be? If those rules had to be simplified (as they most likely will be, in order to be coded), does the whole point get lost in the simplification?
