AXEL OLSON
A detailed plan drawing of the room reveals a domestic space of productivity that is supported, regulated, and disputed by its enclosure. The exterior wall - 14” thick Chicago Common Brick - was stripped of its insulation, revealing the brick on two walls of the interior and exposing the nature of productivity at home through the resulting environmental and spatial relationships between objects in the room. Details highlight aggregations of objects within the corners of the room, which is itself located in the corner of the building. Centralized objects, such as the chair and the computer are more frequently interacted with. The computer, tv, printer and the router are networked objects that rely on connectivity to larger power grid and internet hyperobjects as well as the economic and political institutions that uphold them.
An elevation plainly displays an assembly of objects to the south side of the room facing the window. The objects can be associated with both an “office” environment of productivity (ie the computer, mouse, charger, desk, chairs) and a “private” space of domestic life (desk, chair, couch, lamp, candles, plants, guitar). The line between the two is further diffused by the supporting systems of production and their limitations based on the personal space of the worker/dweller. A loophole symptomatic of the rental economy creates a situation where the worker/dweller is now responsible not only for their own productivity, but the productivity of their environment of labor as well.
An ANT diagram investigates and speculates on the physical and non-physical ties between things that comprise the room and related forces that shape them. Of note is the Chicago fire of 1871, the creation and proliferation of “Chicago Common” brick, the necessities of practicing architecture at home, and the institutions and cultural norms that shape productivity and domesticity.
Five lines are drawn to identify different material and data networks within the room. The open hardwood floor space is outlined and the overlapping rug is superimposed. Electrical wires are dilligently traced and wifi enabled objects are grouped by a dashed line. Clumps of smaller seemingly unrelated objects are outlined in the corners of the desk and room.
Figure ground of the room is abstracted by giving the ground a figure. Other lines dissipate through and weave around the silhouette to represent direct flows of energy embedded in the walls and sprawling through the space. Indirect networks of internet enabled “smart” objects are linked by a fuzzy line, and clumsy aggregations of “dumb” objects are censored by thick poche.
Through a series of commands that include extrude, rotate, boolean difference/union, scale, split, pipe, join, etc. the model embodies the spatial and material relationships within the room that negotiate its productivity.
The void of the room becomes solid, then turns in on itself once again. Interiority/exteriority is further diffused by a glowing mass that merges with the solids and squeezes through the voids.
A plan view bears some resemblance to the original room in its proportions and objects, but has been abstracted beyond immediate recognition. Evidence of scale is present at moments - things like bricks emerge from an opening, or perhaps indicate the active creation of an opening. Other things are propped, clustered, tilted, and merged as they subscribe to new rules of physics in a non-physical form.