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Voting was dominated by five entries with the winner taking approx. 40% of the total votes cast. Interestingly, none of the top five presented 'return to normal' as an option. Three of them (nos. 1, 2 and 4) offered rather hard-line roadmaps into permanently antisocial futures - whether ironically, polemically or literally. The remaining two (nos. 3 and 4) were less extreme, but also saw the pandemic as leading to irrevocable changes into how buildings and cities would be used and designed in future. All of them were distinguished, in true avant-garde architecture manifesto style, with a clear central idea and compelling visual accompaniment.

The results were as follows:

1. CHARLATISM (47 votes)
2. THE INDIVIDUAL COLLECTIVE (27 votes)
3. DESIGN INSPIRED NATURE (19 votes)
4. ARCHITECTURAL DISTANCING (11 votes)
5. CORONTRAST (7 votes)

Well done to all students for producing such arresting, thought-provoking work on a difficult yet timely topic!

SR180520

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An illustrated discussion of a range of visualizing techniques in architectural manifestoes.

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A nightmarish drama adapted from J.G. Ballard about a man deciding to live his life in total isolation, featuring Antony Sher in top form.

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Home (BBC film of J. G. Ballard's The Enormous Space)

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A visionary science fiction short story by E.M. Forster exploring the consequences of replacing real social interaction with a totally networked environment, written seventy years before the internet was invented.

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An essay by Charles Jencks explaining the role and tropes of the architectural manifesto as a distinct avant-garde genre.

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An article by S. Richards on the philosophy of antisocial thinking and its influence on architecture and planning.

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*** SCROLL TO THE END OF THE PADLET FOR VOTING RESULTS ***

Our second year architecture students conclude their Critical Theory module by composing, pitching and debating manifestoes laying out the future trajectory of architecture as they would like to see it.  This year a theme naturally presented itself.  The students were tasked with reflecting upon their experience of isolation under the COVID-19 pandemic to consider how it might irrevocably alter socio-spatial relations and consequently architecture. They were required:

1. To engage with longstanding philosophies that social interaction might not be the answer to everything (right: 'The Old Normal?').

2. To explore the architectural implications and opportunities of a new antisocial society.

Some did this wholeheartedly. Some rebelled and instead sought new ways to kickstart society. The work involved researching and writing an architectural theory in avant-garde manifesto format, as well as producing a suite images that encapsulated the manifesto. Although unable to conduct the public debate this year, we decided to share a brief digest of the manifestoes as well as some images (below: click to open).

Please 'heart' however many you like, but vote for your favourite at www.mentimeter.com (code: 469635).

Nothing is riding on this vote apart from the future of humanity and - more importantly - bragging rights. But please remember: architectural manifestoes are meant to be thought experiments, visionary and polemical, sometimes confrontational and disturbing. Their images can come in any format, from rough cartoons, through careful designs, photomontage and film, from the serious to the absurdist. The most memorable manifestoes are often the ones that frighten us and that we would hate to see realized. Charles Jencks used the term 'Volcano and Tablet' to describe the genre: they are preachy, fire-and-brimstone stuff, channelling Moses and the Ten Commandments.

Voting closes midday Saturday 16th with the results posted here on Monday 18th.

At the end of this Padlet you can click on some of the resources the students were offered to help them explore this theme.

SR 140520

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Group 13| REINVENTING THE ARCOLOGY (Heslop, Brown)

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Group 13| REINVENTING THE ARCOLOGY (Heslop, Brown)

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Invented by the Italian architect Paolo Soleri in 1969, 'arcologies' are vast, self-sufficient technological megastructures concentrated on super-dense pockets of land, operated by worker cooperatives, and surrounded by nature allowed to grow truly wild. Attributing the COVID-19 pandemic to a process of globalisation fuelled by human greed and envy, rampant consumerism and environmental despoliation, this manifesto turbo-charges the arcology concept with calls for the total reconditioning of human impulses and priorities and the elimination of all non-essential consumer luxuries as well as celebrity culture with its toxic values.

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Group 12| 2056 (Carson, Lubskaya, Williams, Lawson)

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Group 12| 2056 (Carson, Lubskaya, Williams, Lawson)

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This manifesto focuses on the topics of wellbeing, community socialisation and time management for an architecture of close-knit, bucolic 'campuses'.  The group agree with Jane Jacobs that the benefits of social interaction will always outweigh the dangers of current and possible future pandemics, and lay out a programme whereby the demonstrable advantages of campus-living will see them spread for total global domination by 2056.

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Group 10| AUTHENTIC LIVING: FULFILMENT THOUGH SIMPLICITY (Jones, Wilshaw)

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Group 10| AUTHENTIC LIVING: FULFILMENT THOUGH SIMPLICITY (Jones, Wilshaw)

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The Authentic Living Manifesto is a ‘back to basics’ proposal for how humanity should live. Finding cause for the spread of COVID-19 in a catastrophic dependence on global networks, ALM argues for the systematic dismantling of global patterns of movement, production and consumption. They channel the countercultural, DIY ethos of The Whole Earth Catalogue and Drop City from the 1960s and '70s, but find a new enemy to target: the local, lo-fi self-sufficient 'Dumb City' will triumph over the globally-networked 'Smart City'. So long Norman Foster with your Masdar City - you will not be missed.

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Group 11| THE NEO-FORTIFICATION MOVEMENT (Hu, McHarry, Stemitsiotis)

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Group 11| THE NEO-FORTIFICATION MOVEMENT (Hu, McHarry, Stemitsiotis)

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The core values of this movement come from cognitive neuroscience and the belief that urban settlement patterns, accelerating since the Industrial Revolution, have caused human socializing to exceed well beyond the limits that the standard human brain and psyche can cope with let alone benefit from. Cities need to be reined in and remodelled into semi-independent 'Citadels' to keep social networks at the meaningful optimum, while also being linking into the productive activities of the larger city. A subterranean shadow city will exist beneath the surface city, serving as a secure contamination-proof retreats to safeguard against future pandemics. A pandemic-proof reboot of Charles Fourier's 'Phalansteries', crossed with the weaponized Renaissance palazzos of Alberti.

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Group 9| THE INDIVIDUAL COLLECTIVE (Amadi, Bajic)

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Group 9| THE INDIVIDUAL COLLECTIVE (Amadi, Bajic)

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Supplementing their images with a powerfully narrated film montage, TIC presents the current pandemic and its handling as just the final inevitable symptom of the calamitous trajectory taken by world governments. Their solution: a re-statement of a maxed-out, hardcore Corbusian vision, where all elements of society, work, lifestyle and consumption habits are regularized by the architect. Taking functionalism to the extreme, factors such as 'individual' and 'collective' will be spatially-engineered to their optimum potentials. All that is required is acceptance of the calmly reassuring yet icily sinister voice, another effective dystopian motif, and surely the latest avatar of Le Corbusier's 'Lawgiver'.

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Group 8| OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT COVID-19 EXPERIMENT (CITY PHASE 2) (Damani, Khokhar, Jones, Tolley)

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Group 8| OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT COVID-19 EXPERIMENT (CITY PHASE 2) (Damani, Khokhar, Jones, Tolley)

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This manifesto expertly deploys the insidiously persuasive language and typography of government bureaucracy and public service communications to make the case for wholesale surveillance and the suspension of civil liberties in a permanent state of lockdown, all presented as predicated on whatever unimpeachable science the politicians have to hand that day. The ghosts of Zamyatin, Orwell, Huxley and Koestler run deep in this vision, which like all effective dystopias is all the more disturbing for its uncanny resemblance to daily reality. COVID-19 robot dogs patrolling the parks of Singapore? Science fiction.

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Group 7| DESIGN INSPIRED NATURE (Hendry-Briars, Foster-Jeapes)

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Group 7| DESIGN INSPIRED NATURE (Hendry-Briars, Foster-Jeapes)

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Taking inspiration from the way natural ecosystems have bounced back from the downturn in environmental pollution during a few short months of global lockdown, this manifesto argues for re-setting the entire paradigm for a new architecture that will be grown within nature rather than imposed artificially upon it.  It also explores the architecture of animals and insects - of burrows and hives - for new lessons on how to grow and manage the spaces of social interaction and isolation, whether in times of contentment or crisis.

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Group 6| CORONTRAST (Riley, Brown, Mennell)

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Group 6| CORONTRAST (Riley, Brown, Mennell)

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This manifesto deploys Gestalt psychology and the epistemologies of John Locke and Karl Popper to argue that an environment enriched with unexpected and surprising contrasts is the one best suited to help people develop to their fullest potential. Contrariwise, the environment that is safe, predictable and easy has a deadening effect. Under this understanding, the extremes of socio-spatial experience that the 2020-21 pandemic provided were a salutary reminder of how the built environment might be used to encourage human development. The image of lab rats happily exploring stimulating, well-stocked mazes features here, as it does in quite a lot of architectural and urban theory. Colin Rowe's concept of the Collage City was a big influence here.

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Group 5| ARCHITECTURAL DISTANCING (Barresi, Dabell)

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Group 5| ARCHITECTURAL DISTANCING (Barresi, Dabell)

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Playing with Rem Koolhaas' concept of the 'retroactive manifesto', here we are forced to look back from the year 2122 at the consequences of a two and half year lockdown a century earlier. This prolonged period of isolation altered human nature forever, leaving people not only unable to return to a ‘normal’ level of socialisation but unwilling to. A new architectural and urban paradigm was required, modelled on the discrete circulatory and metabolic processes of the human body, to facilitate humankind's new and irrevocable preference for social distancing.

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Group 4| THE COMMUNAL FUTURE (Burbidge, Downs, Kring)

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Group 4| THE COMMUNAL FUTURE (Burbidge, Downs, Kring)

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Another manifesto that kicks away the crutch of social media, there the focus lay in detailing safe new ways for physically-grounded social interaction via 'co-housing'. This involves a new architectural typology predicated on the idea of collectively-organized, self-sustaining micro-communities that can lockdown and isolate during inevitable future periods of infection, as well as what seems to amount to a kind of traffic light system for indoor circulation.

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Group 3| ADAPTALISM (Doyle, Tucker, Vincent)

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Group 3| ADAPTALISM (Doyle, Tucker, Vincent)

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Unusual for architectural manifestoes, which are usually preachy and condescending, this one refuses to dictate to people how they should be living and interacting. Instead, it imagines a clean, post-COVID-19 built environment adaptable to all lifestyles, from total isolation to communal living. A gentle, laissez-faire approach slightly reminiscent of Venturi/Scott Brown on Las Vegas as well as the Non-Plan group.

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Group 2| ENRICHMENT FREE FROM CONTAGION (Geear, Mears, Johnson)

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Group 2| ENRICHMENT FREE FROM CONTAGION (Geear, Mears, Johnson)

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Excoriating social media for its corrosive effects on people's sense of self-worth and for being a phoney substitute for meaningful interaction, this manifesto argues for a return to real socializing in a future that seems to remain - unfortunately - permanently contaminated and dangerous. The solution: medically-adaptive hygiene-bubbles for everyone, from the level of the home to body-suits. Kind of like Superstudio crossed with the Bubble Boy case.

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Group 1| CHARLATISM (Abdulwahid, Brahmanto, Cordall, Usman Buhari)

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Group 1| CHARLATISM (Abdulwahid, Brahmanto, Cordall, Usman Buhari)

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A brutally uncompromising manifesto arguing that the assumed benefits of socializing are delusional, and that they represent a perversion of the fundamentals of human nature which flourishes only in solitude. The city is re-designed here as a vast hermitage of extreme self-reliance. Thematically and tonally reminiscent of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Discourse on the Origin of Equality (1755) where the decline of the human species is said to begin with the first sparks of sociability and urban civilization, and in practical terms offering a hoped-for reversal of the social damage that Rousseau lamented. Ironically, Rousseau himself was extremely gregarious.

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The global lockdown under the COVID-19 pandemic looks and feels unprecedented, particularly the emergence of a 'new normal' for socio-spatial interaction. It certainly causes a problem for architects.

Beginning with Jane Jacobs’ momentous intervention in the 1960s, architecture over last sixty years has been dominated by the assumption that neighbourliness, community and face-to-face interaction are vital elements in our social and psychological health. Architects are expected to design spaces that help people get together: ‘civic’ amenity, ‘public’ plazas, ‘hubs’ and ‘nodes’ and ‘transitional’ zones for all gradients of human interaction.

As always, however, the longer historical view is useful.

Theories of architecture, likewise theories of society, psychology and indeed philosophy itself, have not always been committed to the assumption that social interaction is desirable, let alone that it should be considered the defining aspect of a person’s life, health and happiness. From Plato and Alberti through to Descartes, Pascal, Rousseau, Fourier, Jung, Camus, Riesman and Le Corbusier, we see arguments that there are real dangers - social, psychological, and medical - in allowing people to mix together freely. Large gatherings of people might become unruly and radically politicized, they might engage in immoral and sinful behaviours, and they would certainly swap their germs. ‘Contagion’ has been a word used to describe the spread of all these things, not just disease.

In their various ways – from the ‘Idealism’ of Plato through to the ‘Existentialism’ of Camus – these and other figures argued that the proper conduct of life must include substantial amounts of time in personal isolation so that people could figure out their truths and values for themselves, away from social norms, expectations and censure. Camus referred to this as 'our places of exile': a crucial, rebellious withdrawal from society.

Architecturally this required the design of the right kind of spaces to sustain it. For Le Corbusier this involved ‘the death of the street’, the elimination of café culture and germ-ridden concert halls, and residential architecture that was modelled after monasteries. For Fourier it involved the carefully managed antisocial residential unit, the 'phalanstery'. Indeed, under Foucault's analysis, the professions of architecture and planning owe their very origins to the need to control contagion during times of social upheaval and plague.

In historical terms the social city is little more than a recent fashion. The antisocial city is the old normal.

SR140520