Our New Process of Collaborative Design

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In 2014, @hitheryon was invited to participate in the group exhibition “techne” at Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art in Copenhagen. At the time, I was living in Berlin, @hansikhouse was living in Boston, @voronoi was living in New York, and @arete was living in San Francisco. In order to create our drawings of a fictional cityscape for the exhibition, we devised a new system for collaborating in the process of three-dimensional design while working from our remote geographical locations. Using Google Drive and Rhinoceros 3D, we passed files of digital models between us, constantly building upon the construction of the person who came before us. Our system had five parts for designing each building in the cityscape:

• The first person writes a narrative about the origin and purpose of the building as a way of inspiring the designs to follow. He begins the construction by building a plinth (foundation) for the new building in Rhino.
• The second person adds a structure to the foundation.
• The third person adds walls within the structure.
• The fourth person adds a garden to give context to the new construction.
• The first person returns to complete the design by adding an envelope (facade).

Here is Building 007 (out of twenty-one). I started the process by writing the narrative below.

Building 007 : Torus Prison

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Elevated fifteen meters above the ground, a ring of prison cells spins at a constant speed to create an effect of pseudogravity upon the inner surface. Inmates of the prison appear to defy gravity, living their lives in a horizontal orientation with their feet held to the vertical plinth by the centrifugal force of the spinning structure. The plinth is divided into a grid of cells and held up above the ground by a massive supporting structure located at the center of the ring. The central support not only allows the constant rotation but also provides the space for a central garden tower, acting as a point of surveillance as well as a static refuge from the constant motion at the perimeter. The perpetual motion of the structure ensures the impossibility of escape, for the inmates are not only glued to the ground of their cells by centrifugal force, they are also guaranteed a certain death if ever they could free themselves from the overwhelming spin and fly into the sky at a deadly speed.

Plinth and narrative by @erb ^

Structure by @arete ^

Wall by @hansikhouse ^

Garden by @voronoi ^

Envelope by @erb ^

All together now - Building 007 by @hitheryon ^

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The complete Cityscape of twenty-one buildings presented by @hitheryon
at Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art

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Reflections:

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My favorite moment in the design of this building was the moment that @hansikhouse decided to put the entire prison on top of a skyscraper. One of the most interesting things about creating architecture in a digital modeling program is that the designers lose all sense of scale. When I first opened the file sent back from @hansikhouse, I couldn't even process how large his skyscraper addition really was until I dropped the prison on top of it. If you scroll up and look closely at the tiny specks surrounding the prison structure in the first image above, you'll notice those are people. Suddenly you have a sense of how utterly gigantic this building is, thanks mostly to the complete explosion of scale brought on by the skyscraper.

Inspiration:

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Elevation, section and plan of Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon penitentiary,
drawn by Willey Reveley, 1791

The design of this (very inhumane) prison is a combination of Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon penitentiary and the classic fair ride called the Gravitron. The design of the Panopticon puts the prisoners' cells in a circle around the watchman tower. The idea behind this design is that there is nowhere the prisoners can hide - they have the constant feeling that they are being watched, because the watchman at the center-point of the circle can see everything going on in each cell. And most importantly, if the prisoners know that the guard could be watching them at any moment, they are incentivized to always behave.

Panopticon-style prison in Cuba
Photo by Tod Seelie

We took this concept one step further into the absurd, making the design a constantly rotating structure which physically restricts the prisoners to a life of horizontal orientation. Their feet are stuck to the wall by the centrifugal forces of the rotation, just like a Gravitron ride. Not only do the prisoners feel like they're always being watched, they are literally forced to live their lives on a different plane of gravity. I would definitely not support the actual construction of a building like this, but I believe it's the duty of theoretical architecture to not only conceive of great ideas but also to warn of the ways in which architecture can be used for harm.

Gravitron ride, outside (Source)

Gravitron ride, inside (Source)

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Thanks for reading!
Let me know what you think of this design in the comments below.