Aesthetics and Propaganda. Manipulations towards a New American Century.

BIG BOX

Architectural Type on the verge of the Ubiquitous Singularity

Can we author a new territorial order for a post-crisis America, yet authentic to its Midwestern modernity, using big boxes and sheds to organize an otherwise emptied plain?

Can we demonstrate that typological unification need not imply urbanistic impoverishment? That a simple, consistent architecture allows the diversity of society to articulate itself?

How far could you go in composing a new territorial order that is authentic to a Midwestern modern, using big boxes and sheds to organize an otherwise emptied plain?

How close is architecture to developing a ‘universal motherboard’, a typology so basic, economic, and bereft of whim that it can serve any program on any site? Is this absolutist crystallization of the big box a universal trend, or is it in fact the result of the genius loci of the Midwest?

Given that the big box is heavily influenced by extreme instrumentalities of truck driving, car and machine operations on floor surfaces contiguous form inside to outside, how will the currently asymptotical development towards the ‘perfect big box’ be bent or re-directed by the appearance of the electric car?

How fitting would it be that Midwestern Civilization, the very ground zero of (oil-based) automobile-based development, also launches the post-oil city – that of the electric car?

If we put all these pieces together, what would the architectural urbanism of a post-crisis America, built around electric cars and high-speed rail lines, be like?

We are at a turning point. Americans and Midwesterners have blinded ourselves from those things that connect us to the natural world. We have closed our eyes to the processes of nature and choose to live in our confined world of consumption.

Packaged meat and out of season produce from the big grocery chains fill our shopping carts. We buy our cosmetics and car tires from the super Wal-Mart down the street. Where do these products come from? We do not care.

When our purchases have been exhausted, they go out on the curb where they are picked,up for us and taken away. Where does it go? We do not care.

If we know how products were produced would we buy the same things?

If we had to live with our waste would we waste as much?

The all-inclusive big boxes litter our landscape with anything and everything we could ever want and need at our disposal. There is a big box to store raw materials, there is a big box that makes the items we consume, there is a big box to store them until transit, there is a big box to display items for us to purchase, and ultimately a big box to process the trash we create from our increasing consumption, Our society of consumption, heavily supported by the Big box, is working against our Midwestern fertile land and against our human nature.

So let us use these structures to realign society. Let us confront our society with a consumer intervention in the form of a big box city! Big boxes that house every part of production, consumption and waste, and on top of that, let's lives in them! Live in the factory, live on the farms, live with the landfills and incinerators, live with the cows and the slaughterhouse, live with the crops and the combine machines, live with the processes that turn animal by-products into cosmetics and tires! Let us take our blinders off to the world that supports us as'living organisms of this earth and LIVE!

The big box of the future will let us accomplish this. It has no preconceptions, it has no intended use, it has no program boundaries. It is our blank slate for a new way of life to start in the Midwest.

01 The Canvas of our life scenes: Each district sets the stage for self-identification; we choose the culture that best fits our ethos.

We want those with the vision and intellectual capital to join us in propagating the nirvana of the 21st century city. We declare that brand identities are America’s cultural institutions. Our district brands are magnets; they draw the best residents, investment and events based on the unique qualities they represent. The strength of the district brand will attract other like-minded industries and production, technological think-tanks - the new “creative class” - in order to feed off of the existing pool of talent and innovation, in a never-ending cycle of resource magnetism. Get Branded.

02 That’s right it is all about us: We engage in life at the human scale.

We rebel against the audacious indoctrination that the car is our ticket to freedom. No more mindless commutes to and from suburbia, or getting swallowed up by the concrete jungle. In our districts, life is experienced at the human scale in conditioned surroundings: the covered city provides a temperate environment conducive to pleasurable activity – we engage in our favorite activities year round. We refuse to live life on autopilot – instead, we immerse ourselves in live/work/play every day. We are free to walk to all of the places from which the automobile has previously held us hostage. Our vistas are unimpeded by skyscrapers and never-ending towers of concrete; we’ve liberated ourselves to interact with the built environment.

03 We give ourselves the green light: Our environment is free of traffic congestion, and moves at a pedestrain-friendly speed.

Revolt against being a sheep following the herd through daily gridlock. We transport ourselves via paths and lanes designed specifically for pedestrian life. Market streets, parks and pathways, playgrounds and squares intersect where we engage in all our everyday activities; accessibility is unrestricted by former treacherous vehicular speeds. We don’t observe life flying past the periphery of our windshields. It is now possible to walk to wherever we need to be. If we feel the need for speed, we check out a bike, segue, or e-car to get to where we’re going, then grab another on our way: we drive up, plug in, and power on.

04 Break the ties that bind: Availability and accessibility are always a maximum of 10 minutes away.

We will not be bound by sheer volumes of inert land. Our district boundaries are defined by the speeds and distances between transportation modes, not by arbitrary lines drawn over geographic maps. Within each district, all activities are available via circulation pathways navigated by walking, biking, and/or use of an electric vehicle. Shops, restaurants, industry, social and civic services including transit are all located within ¼ mile walk – 10 minutes from home. Within minutes, we can be at the edge of the district, where light rail connects adjacent districts and provides connections to the interstate and high speed rail.