Comments on: Parasitic Guerrilla Architecture Hijacks the Arche de la Défense

By: Eric Hunting

Eric Hunting — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 17:51:20 +0000

This is both a brilliant demonstration of the concept of adaptive reuse but also a very profound political statement. It\\\’s an illustration of a Post-Industrial re-appropriation of the technology, resources, and sociopolitical power of the Industrial Age and its monolithic systems in the wake of its progressive functional collapse by virtue of its inherent unsustainability and oppressiveness. It\\\’s illustrating a story of a society that is compelled to find its own new way -create it\\\’s own new systems- amidst the remnants/ruins of a dysfunctional political and economic system that simply stopped serving the interests of the public. Its a glimpse of a very plausible very-near-future where we are compelled to reinvent wheels in an ad hoc manner for the sake of survival when the \\\’system\\\’ has run so far off the rails it\\\’s made itself an anachronism. One might nit-pick the \\\’practicality\\\’ of such dwellings, but that\\\’s missing the point. This construction would be intended as an act of protest.

I\\\’ve often wondered why we don\\\’t actually see more of what could be called \\\’architectural activism\\\’, but then, until quite recently, designers were rather content as professionals in service of the upper-class -since if you wanted to make Big Things you had to go to people with money. Perhaps designers, having recently become more aware of the developing world and environmental situations and how design potentially impacts those situations, are now starting to clue-in to their relation to the political and economic systems operating in the world at present. They are starting to notice the connections the environmentalism movement has understood for a long time. Architecture has often been used to make political statements. They just haven\\\’t yet been particularly progressive statements.

By: Long Tan Park: Cascades of Box Homes Covering the Mountains of China | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 13:56:17 +0000

[...] intriguing irregularity and resulting differentiated terraces are our favorite feature of this design. And the spacing of the homes isn’t just for [...]

By: the bystander

the bystander — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:01:27 +0000

I wonder if they remembered that people poop, use water, maybe cook with gas, use electricity when they design these boxes.
Mass Housing units devote a good amount of space for these infrastructures and I am not seeing it with this design.

By: kristiantheconqueror

kristiantheconqueror — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 08:23:01 +0000

I don’t know if you can say “Shanty Town” or “Hooverville” but I can…

The first natural disaster to hit the area (or even just a heavy rain) would cause a humanitarian crisis.

By: TonyAgudo

TonyAgudo — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 05:44:57 +0000

The concept picture makes the Arche look like a city within a city. It’s absolutely beautiful.

By: seamusdubh

seamusdubh — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 01:18:48 +0000

I find it interesting that the advocates of this type of construction really don’t take into account architectural safety and the third world poverty squalider shanty shack look. Let alone the privacy and property rights issue.
Some thing like this could easily be like the Haiti disaster if not like the Walled city of Kowloon, in China.

http://drpop.org/2010/02/dangerous-districts/#more-343

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City