(Cautionary) Tales of Disappearing Offices — Projekt

Lehrende: Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Jasper Cepl
                 Dr. Dulmini Perera

In the Architectural Design issue for December 1971, Superstudio, the Italian Design Agency, published “Twelve Cautionary Tales for Christmas” — dystopian miniatures governed by ludicrous ideas — that were introduced as “twelve visions of ideal cities, the supreme achievement of twenty thousand years of civilization, blood, sweat and tears; the final haven of Man in possession of Truth, free from contradiction, equivocation and indecision; totally and for ever replete with his own PERFECTION”. While clearly meant to entertain, they were also disturbing, and obviously wanted you to think further. In their ambivalence, Superstudio’s “Cautionary Tales” give a good idea of the approach we will also be pursuing in this project.

We’ll be staging clashes of ideas and reality — this time of ideas to transform our cities in light of the manifold ways in which workplaces are changing. By analyzing existing patterns, amplifying weak signals and extrapolating them to their logical extremes, we’ll conceive our own dystopian miniatures. In other words: We’ll be telling “(Cautionary) Tales of Disappearing Offices”.

We will explore some of the ideas floating around, or make up our own visions — but we won’t be complacently presenting these concepts as panaceas. Every remedy will turn into a poison if administered in abundance and without discretion. With this thought in mind, we will rather push our ideas to their limits and consider them as hypotheses offering incentives for further thought. Ideas give us something to dwell upon. Putting them to their extreme application will — hopefully — allow us to check their feasibility or desirability, or show their weaknesses.

What will become of cities if we seriously consider the impact of some of the predictions offered today? A decline in the demand for office buildings? Dwindling amount of business trips? People moving to the countryside? We are unable to actually forecast what will happen. But, based on the little information we have, we can still set up scenarios, as models to show “what would happen if?”.

Along those lines, we will explore the impacts an idea may have if you trace the chain of dominos falling down and show the consequences of a chosen concept and its interaction with the workings of society at large. We thereby attempt to establish a method by which architects can contribute to political consulting, by doing what designers do best: using their imagination — to conceive dystopian miniatures (for which students are invited to select a specific site or context and a system that is affected by the questions of the disappearing office within a city of their choice).

The project will be supplemented by a compulsory seminar. In a reading group to go with the project, we will have a closer look at the ideas and methods we will employ.

How did you come to choose the course’s title?

We took it up from Superstudio’s “Twelve Cautionary Tales for Christmas”. They presented images of “twelve ideal cities”, accompanied with texts explaining life (and death) in those cities (you’ll find them here: socks-studio.com/2011/09/17/twelve-cautionary-tales-for-christmas-12-ideal-cities-by-superstudio-1971/). It’s this mixture of narrative and visual imagination that we find productive. And we also like the idea of telling cautionary tales …

But what is a “cautionary tale”?

A cautionary tale is a kind of fairy tale, in which the dire consequences of apparently innocuous actions are illustrated, usually in a strikingly exaggerated way, as in the German children’s book Struwelpeter. In Superstudio’s case the cautionary tales were about ideal cities that weren’t that ideal after all. All twelche are dystopian — each is utopia gone wrong. In our case, the cautionary tales will be about the ambivalence of “disappearing offices”. 

Ok, but why is “cautionary” put in brackets in the course’s title?

Because you may find that dystopia really isn’t your thing and that you’d prefer to go for something more uplifting. Or more constructive. We won’t prohibit utopian visions.

Ok, I understand, but — why a “cautionary tale” in a design studio?

Because we want to look beyond simply producing architectural designs.

But aren’t architects supposed to design buildings?

Yes, they are. In the real world. However, we believe that architects should use the freedom of academia to do things that can’t be done in the real world. That’s why we think the studio is a place to explore the challenges mankind is facing. With the designerly skills architects have. And the professions usually conducting research usually — lack. 

What does that mean “designerly skills”?

We believe that the capacity architects have to conceive designs can be used to imagine and illustrate the changes we are facing, and moreover, that this is something no one else can contribute. We hence may be able to give some advice and contribute to policy making in a very meaningful way.

Uhm. Ok. And why is the studio about offices?

Good question. It could also have been retail. But it could also have been about electrical vehicles. And there are many more topics. They have on common that disruptive changes are taking place. But we cannot look at everything at the same time. So, we chose offices as an example. An example that will allow us to focus and not get lost. 

What is it that you want us to do?

We want you to imagine a scenario in which the consequences of disappearing offices are brought to life. We will explore the changes it entails when offices lose their importance and all sorts of patterns in the city are put into question. — But why don’t you ask what we don’t want you to do?

Ok, what is that you don’t want us to do?

We don’t want you to design flats for home office use. We don’t want you to design co-working spaces. It might happen that you produce these things as a by-product, but solving such issues is not our primary concern. 

But then what is it that you want us to produce, if it is not about designs?

Don’t worry: You will design eventually. But first, we want you to understand the “wicked problem” we are facing. The consequences for society at-large, or as a system. 

A “wicked problem”? What is that?

It’s a concept proposed by Horst Rittel at the beginning of the 1970s. It will be key to understanding the issues we are facing. A wicked problem is a problem which cannot be clearly solved because of the difficulties in telling causes from effects, among other things. We’ll introduce you to the idea, no worries. 

Ok, and what I am supposed to do once I am more familiar with this kind of thinking?  

Use you designerly skills to tend the issues we will single out together. And tell the story — find a cautionary tale of at first unforeseen things that might happen once office work as we know it is in retreat.

And how do I do that? 

By producing visual material to tell the story. By writing. But potentially also by calculating the impact an idea might have. 

That still sounds a bit vague.

We know. That’s why we will let you choose a site to focus on. You’ll then have to project the ideas we explore on the real sites that exist, and show how they would change. We want to see ideas and realities clash.

Why is that? 

Because it will allow us to assess the impact specific ideas or potential developments might have — as in the example of the “Berlin 1995” project we referred to in the video announcing the course. Done at Ungers’s chair at TU Berlin at about 1970, it was to show what would happen if a megastructure was raised on top of Berlin to accommodate further growth. The outcome may look rather dystopian—but that can only be said with the results of the studio at hand. Only through actually designing the project could the real world desirability of the rather lofty idea of “megastructure” be assessed… 

Ok, but what’s the point? All your references are 50 years old. How can this be? Isn’t there anything newer? 

Well, the issues we face are certainly novel. But we can still learn a lot from those projects. And they also tell us what to rule out. There are also lessons we have learned — experiments we don’t have to repeat. Ideas that have shown their limits. For instance, we think it would be naïve to again consider megastructures. We already know, they won’t work.

You do, but I don’t.

Don’t worry, we’ll explore this with you…

4. STUDIO + SEMINAR OUTLINE (SHORT TIMELINE)

Beginn:  05. November 2020
Zeit:      donnerstags, 09:15 - 16:45 Uhr
Ort:       Moodle und nach Absprache
             Arbeitsraum 202 im Kubus