Static Dystopia : From Architectural Staticism to free Space: The need for flexible space

Abstract: STATIC DYSTOPIA   One of the greatest transformations of our constructed physical spaces is taking place now and for a long time to come. The buildings we have created do not serve the needs and conditions of our time. They are exhausted of recurrent renovations and inexhaustible attempts to remodify already given forms, which result in expensive contracts. According to new EU-requirements scheduled 2019, no new buildings are allowed to consume more energy than they produce. And more restrictions concerning energy consumption of our existing buildings are raised around the western world to better match our present conditions regarding our decreasing resources. We have overbuilt ourselves with impractical structures that can not be modified for a natural change of our living conditions. They are too static and lack the possibility for rational reprogrammation. Instead of adapting them to future inevitable restruction, we make them even more static through passive housing.   Relevant architectural intelligentsia seem to be a thing of the past where we can find numerous examples of buildings that allows adaptability and room for reprogrammation. Meanwhile temporary refugee camps turn into constant growing cities. Whole cities and landscapes are changed during a day due to natural activities. They too lack potential reprogrammability because of its poor and barbarous approach to human living conditions. Our civilization has all the tools for changing this situation by building in a format that calculates the process of reprogrammation of physical environments. This problematic is not as relevant in furniture or interior, but can still be used with great success to improve our homes and working places. Staticism, in contradiction to reprogrammability, have fundamental values that can not be questioned when used for its’ right purpose, and it is not my intention to replace it. With rational solutions containing the combination of them both we can, and will have to, revaluate the way we construct our physical surroundings.   In my master degree project I am using my theory about reprogrammability to create a set of furniture that allows change in materiality, use, and function. This example should be considered as an exemplification of the thesis in a minor simplified scale rather than an object for actual use. The mounting of the furniture is based on a grid that allows easy assembly and reassembly of the various parts. The separated grids are shaped by their appurtenant c/c measurements (280 mm, 70 mm etc.), and are overlapping each other to allow construction symbiosis.