STUDIO MID-TERM REVIEW

Its hard to believe, but studio is still going, and after several iterations, we have what is fast becoming as respectable building.  The reviewers enthused the general parti, and suggested novel ways to improve or tinker with the design, to pull out the central framework a little more effectively.

View looking East along Yacht Club Road

EXPERIMENTS IN FOUCAULDIAN SPATIAL CONTROL

In attempting to manifest my ideas on control within learning environments, I have moved into the physical realm.  Foucault states that "discipline sometimes requires enclosure" which eventually becomes "the protected place of disciplined monotony".  Within this enclosed space, the body fills out to the limits of its confinement.  Activity is confined to the degree of separation and segregation that is found within the institutional space.  Two forces, therefore act in balance; the will of the body, and the confines of enclosure.

DESCHOOLING GREENVILLE

Thesis_Article_V2

In Northern California, where the Sierra Nevadas meet the Cascade Range, lies a small community called Greenville.  The town is small and, along with its neighbours throughout Indian Valley, paints an idyllic picture of rural simplicity.  They say there that you can never pop out to run an errand, because you will meet someone you know, and be drawn into a conversation that may last 5 minutes or all afternoon. 

DESCHOOLING GREENVILLE

Thesis Abstract_V8_10/21/11

The primary architectural interest of this thesis is to test the power dynamics of space using the vehicle of education.  The structures of power that surround learning environments in the US have created what Michel Foucault calls docile bodies - people that become subjected, used, transformed and improved by the disciplining machine that is the institution.  For the purpose of this reseach, the definition of education has been expanded to encompass a more broad term ‘cultural exchange’ and the school has become simply the places where this exchange happens.