Studio 2.1 - Bureau of Situated Curiosities
Arjun Rajah and Selim Halulu
“Our time is a time for crossing barriers, for erasing old categories - for probing around. When two seemingly disparate elements are imaginatively poised, put in apposition in new and unique ways, startling discoveries often result.” Marshall McLuhan
Whilst our surroundings can be seen as a composite of habits, both collective and individual, they can also be seen to shape them by defining identities and suggesting spatial and temporal narratives. Furthermore, long established patterns of behaviour can be disrupted or even made extinct by political, environmental, technological or economic factors. This studio is formed as a Bureau, investigating the role of the architect within this context.
Our questions will delve into an understanding and ongoing evaluation of how we use spaces, appropriating findings to construct reactions rooted in specific contexts. Consequently, projects will be human centric - not form centric - developed as critical tools that debate the design consequences of today’s information and technology driven society. The Bureau’s interest lies in responses, not solutions. Where do the behaviours of the individual and those of the collective overlap, strengthen or diminish each other? What happens when the personal meets the shared? Each semester will include a series of exercises in the form of ‘responses’ and ‘intents’ which will aid members of the Bureau to build their own personal interpretations of the agenda. Through these they will also contribute to the collective discussion about the ways in which architecture supports or restricts these behaviours, culminating in proposals for housing - a programme in which these questions are arguably the most exposed.
We will operate as a laboratory, assuming all aesthetic decisions are technical ones. Expect the unexpected: results of experiments will never be seen as failures, not doing them will be! Although we will seek to understand the past and speculate possible futures, our projects will be deeply situated in the present.