In the last several years, a crisis of capitalist development has redefined our understanding of cities in terms of international policy making, political constituencies and individual and collective political expressions in the urban realm. Inter Unit 8 has been experimenting with possible new scenarios for this political readjustment at a global scale, departing from its most basic expressions in the city. As a result, students have constructed innovative political arguments by experimenting with the relationship between everyday material activities–such as waiting for a bus, dancing, chatting in the streets, or wheeling and dealing in the city squares–and a particular material organization. In these common everyday practices, students have found the materials from which to reconstruct the political experience in the city. Manifested in public and constructed as a physical material expression, these everyday practices acquire a political value — understanding the political as what Hannah Arendt described as action in public — and redefine new models of the interaction between the individual and the collective in the public arena.

5.10.09

1st Workshop

W2
Immediate Governance: Windows, doors, and transits
05-09 Oct

This first workshop questions the Students’ Association room. At the AA, the general population is represented by select students in a quite straightforward, unionist way. However, when mediating with the rest of the school, the relationship between the association and students is scarcely represented, using only a blackboard on the door. This exercise redefines the Students’ Association room, focusing on how elements of transition such as doors and windows are strategic within the political expression of a space. Each student will propose a detailed system of openings, pondering the political implications of their designs.

Suggested Readings
Robin Evans, “Figures, Doors and Passages” in Translations from drawings to building and other essays, London: AA Publications, 1997, pp. 55-91.
Bruno Reichlin, “The Pros and Cons of the Horizontal Window: The Perret-Le Corbusier Controversy”, Daidalos 13, 1984, pp. 65-78.
Bernard Tschumi, “Manifesto 8: Rooms”, in Architectural Manifestoes, London: AA Publications, 1978.

References
Marcel Duchamp, 11 Rue Larrey, 1927.
Enric Miralles, Ines-table, 1998.
Santiago Sierra, 8 Combinations for a Double Door, 2000.
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Design and research work of Intermediate Unit 8 Architectural Association School of Architecture London UK