The Value of Garbage

Marc Quinn - The littoral zone - Baby by pfer on Flickr.Via...

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 23:00:07 +0300

Marc Quinn - The littoral zone - Baby by pfer on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
Musée océanique de Monaco

The zombie as the figure of architecture

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 22:30:00 +0300

John McMorrough, ‘Undead: Ru(m)inations: the haunts of contemporary architecture’ in M.Guberman, J.Reidel, and F.Rosenberg. Monster: Perspecta 40. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008. | #kamworkshops2011

Once a discipline is defined to in relation to preservation rather than a its performative attributes, it is a constrain rather than opportunity. While at one point such preservations were a necessity, they have now outlived their initial use. At this point the disciplinary conception of architecture concretizes the formats of practice as a rite: what was once the saving grace is now the problem it self. The impulse that originated as a mechanism of preservation has now being transposed into meaning -the defense mechanisms of architecture have become its content; the fort became the prison.

The disciplinary argument is no longer capable of sustaining the development of architecture and should no longer be continually popped out. it is not a matter of choice since the options for architecture to correct its course -to move to technology or economics (pragmatism), or perhaps retire into its own dogma (utopia) -are all to familiar, each an individual manifestation of a collective amnesia regarding the impossibility of such facilities. it is not possible to simply forget or ignore these constructions. Instead architecture needs to creatively dismantle its own fortifications, to try yet again a new ru(m)ination.

Proposing the zombie as the figure of architecture today clearly has pejorative connotations; however the zombie also has a certain kind of freedom. …the promise of these conditions is the articulation of new possibilities. the opportunity and limit of this juncture is the lack of critical apparatus to evaluate the demands of this new intelligence on its own term rather than with the criteria of older models.

What is necessary is a rearticulating of the capacities of architecture, in order to retest the historic legacies of the architectural and to reengage an understanding of these again as means, not ends. In brief it is something worth thinking about… again.

#kamworkshops2011: Seating objects produced during the 1st...

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 22:20:00 +0300

#kamworkshops2011: Seating objects produced during the 1st studio week.

See all works here.

The Residual Character of Commons in the Age of Digital Reproduction

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 22:15:00 +0300

by KERNEL (Pegy Zali, Petros Moris, Theodoros Giannakis)

Bibliography

Bound By Law?, Center for the Study of the Public Domain, by K. Aoki, J. Boyle, 2006
Common as Air: Revolution, Art, and Ownership, by L. Hyde, 2010
Commonwealth, by M. Hardt & A. Negri, 2009
Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity, by L. Lessig, 2005
Reclaiming the Commons, by Naomi Klein, 2001
Romans, Roads, and Romantic Creators: Traditions of Public Property in the Information Age, by Carol M. Rose, 2003
Boyle, J., 2003. The Second Enclosure Movement and the Construction of the Public Domain, by J. Boyle, 2003
The Tragedy of the Anticommons: Property in the Transition from Marx to Market by Michael A. Heller, 1998
Benkler, Y., 2007. The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom, by Y. Benkler, 2007

Download (.zip - 48,3 MB)

Symptom, Garbage, Excrement: Topologies of Value

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 22:10:00 +0300

by Yannis Stavrakakis | #kamworkshops2011

If, today, we are living in the age of garbage – and I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that – this is not only because recycling technologies constitute the second fastest growing investment area in OECD countries, reversing the traditional understanding of garbage as waste and re-constituting it as a source of profit. This is not merely a matter of empirical observation and economic efficiency; it is primarily a matter of conceptual (reflexive) understanding. If we check a dictionary – I did check the one installed in my computer; I think it draws from Webster’s – garbage is invariably involved in the constitution of value and worth, precisely as an index of the their negation/exception. In particular, garbage is defined as ‘a thing that is considered worthless or meaningless’. It inaugurates thus a topology of value ‘contaminating’ all assumptions of identity, all hierarchical oppositions instituting social reality (identity/difference, clean/dirty, primary/secondary). It may be the case, then, that without attributions of garbage status – to give a topical example, the economy is today full of such attributions, from so-called ‘junk bonds’ to PIGS – no worth can be acknowledged; The empty signifier ‘garbage’ is thus revealed as possessing a potent value on a formal level, as a marker of the limits, of the periphery of a system, in fact of every system: without it no systematicity can be established. And without registering and working-through this (symbolic-affective) function no (personal or social) change can be envisaged.[…]

#kamworkshops2011 | regulations for garbage disposal at sea

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 21:00:00 +0300

#kamworkshops2011 | regulations for garbage disposal at sea

#kamworkshops2011 participants

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 20:00:00 +0300

Andreas Aligizos, Evgenia Asimakopoulou, Ourania Chatzitheofilou, Evelina Faliaga, Stefanos Filippas, Vallia Fragia, Kosta Georgiou, Chrysavgi Iordanidou, Irini Karaoli, Myrto Karydi, Eleni Kitani, Christina Krampokouki, Eleni MacKirachan, Christel Makri, Giannis Mamounas, Eliza Mante, Giannis Maroulakis Eleni Mastrogeorgopoulou, Iro Mazaraki, Anais Mikirditsian, Lilia Mitsiou, Maria Mitsoula, Evaggelia Mori, Tania Papasotiriou, Fotis Rovolis, Chara Stergiou, Ileana Toli, Dimitra Tsiami, Stefania Orfanidou, Pinelopi Papadimitrakaki, Irini-Anna Papadopoulou, Stella Rossikopoulou, Dimitris Spyropoulos, Giouli Spyropoulou, Aggeliki Terzaki, Ioanna Thanou, Maria Vgenopoulou, Andriana Voutsina, Evi Zouzoula

Ανδρέας Αλυγίζος, Ευγενία Ασημακοπούλου, Μαρία Βεργοπούλου, Αντριάνα Βουτσινά, Κώστας Γεωργίου, Εύη Ζούζουλα, Ιωάννα Θάνου, Χρυσαυγή Ιορδανίδου, Ειρήνη Καραολή, Μυρτώ Καρύδη, Ελένη Κιτάνη, Χριστίνα Κραμποκούκη, Ηρώ Μαζαράκη, Ελένη ΜακΚιραχαν, Κρίστελ Μακρή, Γιάννης Μάμουνας, Ελίζα Μαντέ, Γιάννης Μαρουλάκης, Ελένη Μαστρογεωργοπούλου, Λίλια Μήτσιου, Μαρία Μήτσουλα, Αναΐς Μικιρντιτσιάν, Ευαγγελία Μώρη, Εύη Ξεξάκη, Τάνια Παπασωτηρίου, Φώτης Ροβολής, Χαρά Στεργίου, Ιλεάνα Τόλη, Δήμητρα Τσιάμη, Στεφανία Ορφανίδου, Πηνελόπη Παπαδημητρακάκη, Άννα Παπαδοπούλου, Στέλλα Ρωσσικοπούλου, Δημήτρης Σπυρόπουλος, Γιούλη Σπυροπούλου, Αγγελική Τερζάκη, Εβελίνα Φαλιάγκα, Στέφανος Φίλιππας, Βάλλια Φραγκιά, Ουρανία Χατζηθεοφίλου

Earthship

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 19:20:00 +0300

The main idea behind the project “Earthship” designed and implemented by the american architect Michael Reynolds lies in the reuse of garbage as building material. The concepts and the design of Earthship, developed as early as the 1970s, were later elaborated in three books published in 1990s titled: “How to build your Own,” “System and Components”, “Evolution Beyond Economics.” The books were conceived as a combination of manifesto, technical study and construction manual. A critical reading of Reynold’s conceptual and design approach, highlights the connections between this project and the architectural culture developed in the 1970s where Reynold’s Earthship shaped its own (pre) history of sustainable design. This project and its analysis contributes in many ways to the research approach of this year’s kamworkshops with the provovative theme: “the value of garbage” and it will be presented in the next days in this tumblr through an extended post.

Waste management facility in Chania. See here photos from the...

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 19:00:00 +0300

Waste management facility in Chania. See here photos from the visit.

#kamworkshops2011 | Map of Clear Broken Glass by Robert...

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 18:00:00 +0300

#kamworkshops2011 | Map of Clear Broken Glass by Robert Smithson

In 1969 near Vancouver, Robert Smithson attempted to create an earthwork which was never realized:“Island of Broken Glass.” In the middle of the Georgia Straight he intended to dump 100 tons of broken glass onto a small rock island called Miami Islet, completely covering its surface with the shattered material. Due to the swirl of protests stemming from environmentalists and anti-Americanists, the project was suspended by a governmental telegram at the last moment.

#thevalueofgarbage | history of the toilet in cross...

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:00:00 +0300

#thevalueofgarbage | history of the toilet in cross sections.

“1 pan closet and 2 valve closet: failure to dilute and purge bowl contents; 3 washout closet, insufficient head to purge lower basin; 4 wash down closet, continuous water movement with minimal loss of head; 5 syphonic closet, supplementary water jet for flushing action; 6 water saving syphonic jet closet, contemporary wash down action modified for reduced water consumption (courtesy of Eljer); 7 vacuum closet, vacuum suction of bowl contents as water plugs (courtesy of Colt industries) […]” from Progressive Architecture 7:75, p.73.

andreasangelidakis: Tumbleweeds Catcher, Gianni Pettena, 1972

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 16:00:00 +0300

andreasangelidakis:

Tumbleweeds Catcher, Gianni Pettena, 1972

phokaides: Metabolic House on Flickr. Key to the Metabolic...

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:00:00 +0300

phokaides:

Metabolic House on Flickr.

Key to the Metabolic House:

A Recycling Chutte / B Mulch Processor / C Mulsch Collector / D Mulch Pickup / E Mulch / F Paper/fuel processor tank / G Furnace-boiler / H Piped-in biodegradable detergent / I Water recycling and distilling system / J Paperless toilet / K Vertical conveyor / L Horizontal conveyor / M Pollution control filters

by William Stumpf, 1989
Published in Lupton, Ellen, and J. Abbott Miller. 1992. The bathroom, the kitchen and the aesthetics of waste: a process of elimination. Cambridge, Mass: MIT List Visual Arts Center.

#kamworkshops2011: Setup for final presentation See twitter...

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 14:00:00 +0300

#kamworkshops2011: Setup for final presentation

See twitter feed and photos.

Six of the most innovative ways to process your poo by Wired magazine

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 14:03:00 +0300

Six of the most innovative ways to process your poo by Wired magazine

The Value of Garbage

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 23:10:00 +0300

Through the condition of the current global financial crisis, alternative concepts of “economy” challenge the obvious values of things today.

At this stage the notion of waste determines from one side what remains exterior to the current value system and on the other hand, identifies/conditions precisely the stability of the current value system’s interior and its adequacy. Everything is defined through a process in which waste, from the one side, shows the limit of the world economy (representing an area outside it), while, from the other -somehow - the waste identifies the internal space of this economy, organizing the financial systematic order by an idiosyncratic negation.

What may be an architecture of waste today? What can be a product of waste? This question will determine an architectonic investigation at this year’s workshop. We encounter efforts to find a new place for waste in today’s economy; waste has already become important and we are already surrounded by rhetorics of waste, recycling strategies, sustainability discourses: waste remains a constant reference gaining more ground and its performativity in contemporary culture is usually ascertained as based on “obvious facts”. Any waste seems to be worthy of our attention, and also as defeating the self-evident character of the value of garbage, based too on idealizations. Architecture’s growing systematic approach to waste also seems to depend on idealizations of the concept of nature and unthoughtful political rhetoric.

With the emergence of waste as a thematic priority, the Center for Mediterranean Architecture’s 10th workshop for summer 2011 aims to re-examine or re-invent a role for architectural theories in the current crisis in order that they result from its controlled bankruptcy. The reconstruction of the theoretical conditions under which waste is shown asks for an explanation of its symbolic power. Architecture tends to appear more and more as evidence of the correct use of garbage. But it needs some confirmation of the value of non-waste to confirm the value of the conversion of waste into a valuable species. The question of the workshop will be: how, through an investigation about waste, strategies of valuation can be organized today? In this process of valuation, is it possible to talk about the product in a way that shows that even the value of waste turns into a fantasmatic waste of precious material? Through which architectures could we avoid an idealized “hidden narcissism of waste”? How could we reconsider new values for architectural production out of new waste strategies?

KAM workshop 2011 produce elementary constructions out of waste and design projects that will be exposed as usual in the Center of Mediterranean Architecture headquarters in the Venician port of Chania, Crete. A lectures program runs in parallel to the design seminars.

athens recycling people 2012 #thevalueofgarbage

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 22:23:07 +0300

athens recycling people 2012 #thevalueofgarbage

The story of the WOBO (WOrld BOttle)

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 22:22:42 +0300

#thevalueofgarbage | A contribution by N. John Habraken.

In the early 1960ties Alfred Heineken, owner of the Heineken breweries noted large heaps of discarded beer when visiting Latin American and African countries. It was company policy to brew all Heineken beer in the Netherlands where quality could be controlled more directly. Where in Holland bottles might be re-used as many as thirty times, those sent overseas were not returned empty. Observing the waste caused by this policy, Heineken decided to produce a beer bottle that could serve as a building brick when empty, thereby responding to the need for shelter in those countries.

In 1963 he asked me to design the WOBO (WOrld BOttle) bottle for him and after several dead end concepts we arrived at a model of which eventually some sixty thousand units were produced by the Royal Glass Works in Leerdam, NL, where much of the heineken bottles came from. The WOBO came in two sizes, one for the 33cl version and another containing 50cl.

The WOBO had two flat sides with rough surfaces to assure easy bonding with the ortar joints. The bottles were laid horizontally like normal bricks with the neck fitting into the hollowed bottom of a previously laid bottle. An interesting design challenge was caused by the fact that a bottle could not be cut like a brick. Therefore it had to be possible to make an opening or turn a corner without need for halve bottles, but at the same time it was important to have vertical joints shift from layer to layer to secure a strong bond. The solution was found in alternating the direction of the courrses.( See diagramatic layout of courses)

Eventually a small shed of green bottle walls was erected in the backyard of Heinekenʼs private home in Noordwijk, NL.

Wildernislaan 63. 7313BD Apeldoorn, Email: habraken@xs4all.nl, Tel: 31-(0)55-355.6354, www.habraken.com,.

No beer was ever sold in the bottle. Heineken was unable to convince his marketing people that using WOBO bottles was a good idea. They were convinced that it would ruin the brandʼs image. There was also concern that the countries where the WOBO would be sent to might consider the initiative paternalistic and demeaning. Somebody suggested that perhaps it would work if first Marilyn Monroe could be cajoled to live in a WOBO walled house.

Some ten years later, in 1975 Martin Pawley, the well known British architectural critic and writer, published A book called ʻGarbage Housingʼ in which an entire chapter named ʻWOBO: a new kind of message in a bottleʼ was devoted to Heinekenʼs aborted initiative. I sent Mr. Heineken a copy of the book and he called me on the phone and said that perhaps now the time was there to have another try. Could I think of something to do with the sixty thousand bottles still stacked in a corner of the main breweries compound.

At the time I had my research office in a temporary building on the campus of the Eindhoven Technical University where I was chair of the department of Architecture, which building had initially been by the architects office that designed the new campus. Working with Rinus van den Berg, a young and very talented industrial designer, I proposed a building for our research group that was built entirely of secondary use materials. It had columns of stacked oil drums and a roof of Volkswagen roof tops with the green WOBO bottle walls filling in for facades and partitioning.

Heineken was happy with the idea and energetically got to work making this possible. He found mr. Pon, the largest Volkswagen dealer in the Netherlands, willing to donate the volkswagen tops. Mr. van Leer, owner of the international Van Leer company that produced oil drums also was found willing to cooperate. Mr. Philips of the Philips Electronics firm that had its headquarters in Eindhoven was approached and agreed to contribute funds to help meet the building costs, and also to approach the university to obtain permission to build our new research office on campus.

Wildernislaan 63. 7313BD Apeldoorn, Email: habraken@xs4all.nl, Tel: 31-(0)55-355.6354, www.habraken.com,.

That summer I was to leave for MIT to become head of the department of architecture. When it all seemed going well, Heineken called me to say that he wanted the university also to contribute money for the erection of the building. I advised him not to ask that, convinced that this would not only mean a long delay of administrative evasion, but that eventually the money would not come. But Heineken insisted and a formal letter was sent out.

What I had feared happened, the project never was implemented. Needless to say that nobody in the Eindhoven department of Architecture saw any merit in giving money to an adventure initiated by a faculty member who had left already. If I had not departed I might - perhaps - have been able in bringing together the various players and getting the job done. But now Heinekenʼs insistence that the university should contribute money to the erection of the building he wanted to build on their campus made the entire project fade away.

The bottles stored on the brewery site have since been removed. At this moment, a wall of WOBO bottles is to be seen in the Heineken Museum in Amsterdam. The shed in Alfred Heinekenʼs backyard disappeared long before he died. It is a pity that he could not experience the present world wide interest in his early initiative.

Apeldoorn February 2008 *****

N.John Habraken, Director SAR foundation of architectʼs research 1965-75, First chair of the department of Architecture, Eindhoven Technical University, Head of the Department of Architecture MIT, USA, 1975-81, Presently professor Emeritus, MIT. Author of “Supports, an alterntive to Mass Housing”, 1962 and 1972, “The structure of the Ordinary” 2000, Palladioʼs Children” 2005..

athens recycling 2012 #thevalueofgarbage

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 22:22:34 +0300

athens recycling 2012 #thevalueofgarbage

#thevalueofgarbage | ‘Waste Not’ art project by Song...

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 16:35:25 +0300

#thevalueofgarbage | ‘Waste Not’ art project by Song Dong at Barbican Centre | London, 2012.