thred.org

Emplacement

The utopian Mind Expander (1983) by Haus Rucker Co, both neural sanctuary and atopic habitat, promises to deliver us from the corporate matrix.

In Empire of the Senses David Howes introduces an extended model of cognition for the cultural reader: "while the paradigm of embodiment implies an integration of mind and body, the emergent paradigm of emplacement suggests the sensuous interrelationship of body-mind-environment." Echoing Andy Clarke's work on the Extended Mind a decade earlier, Howes also reminds us of its counter imperative - displacement. 

Historically, architectural discourse has favoured textual analysis, an approach which has arguably offered up some of the least endearing environments on the planet. Love 'em or loathe 'em, these spaces are now the dominating forces in contemporary corporate life - the non-places in which we permanently dwell; the terminal, the mall and the office.

Magnetic fields

Psychedelic Architecture

The Domes of Drop City, Colorado, 1969

Influenced by the 60s psychedelic movement, an interesting group of architects and designers manipulated space with the aim of triggering higher states of consciousness and living experience. Some of these projects have recently been collated in Alistair Gordon's Spaced Out. A great read for anyone passionate about living off-grid. Leary's turn-on-tune-in-drop-out mantra inspired a whole generation of brightly coloured bucky domes, identified by cool names like Drop City and Morning Star.

Therapeutic Space

Maggies Centre (2008) by Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners. The design avoids corporate structure - no defined meeting, conference or staff areas, spaces are endlessly transformative depending on function. This could be home...

Perhaps the most sustainable move towards the transhuman workplace which offer us the ability to operate as creatively motivated employees, is the home office, with all its associated mobile technologies. And yet if Ken Robinson's theory about creative cognition is right, industrialized cultures do everything in their power to prevent innovation. The Internet has granted us freedom of movement without freedom of mind... it currently has no potential to transform the conformist virtues of Taylorism that begin at preschool and continue influencing cognitive health throughout our working lives. Douglas Rushkoff's timely book on corporatism Life Inc is a vivid reminder to those creative mavericks who smugly believe they function outside this Taylorist landscape - not so - we are all shareholders now.

Google HQ (2005) by Clive Wilkinson - while visually dynamic, the design ultimately fails to transform or transhumanize its employees, it sadly remains faithfully rooted to Talorist norms.

Morphing the Body

The human body, transformed in the final scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick (1968)

Influenced by the writings of Marshall McLuhan, Christopher Dewdney reminds us about our transitional state of being in his book Last Flesh: Life in the Transhuman Era (1998)...

"We are the products of bioengineering. Our immune systems have been altered by decoy viruses injected via vaccines. We consume genetically altered food. We use mood altering psychopharmaceuticals, from fermented grape juice to Prozac. More recently, our bodies have become sites for more than 250 types of artificial implants: synthetic heart valves, pacemakers, artificial hip and knee joints, synthetic arteries and eye lenses, not to mention those used in plastic surgery. Eventually neural implants will be used to augment our brains. Prostheses to restore the vision of blind patients have already been successfully implanted in human cortexes."

Transhuman media

‘Typist’, Anton and Arturo Bragaglia (1911)

The word Transhuman first appears in Dante Alighieri's Divina Commedia (1312), yet it was not until the technologies of the Modern age via Futurism (Italy 1908) and Dadaism (France 1915) that the concept of Transhumanist Media found a wider audience. Futurism celebrated  contemporary life by rejecting traditional norms via two key themes - the kinetic machine and the fusion of art and science. Dadaism was more a way of life than a style, aimed to shock the public into challenging accepted aesthetic values thus transhumanist in nature. While Dadaists were often irrational and negative and Futurism was short-lived, Transhumanist media is dynamically optimistic and life-extended. Arguably, the philosophical works by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin like The Future of Man (1959) which explored both the application of bodymind technologies and the acceleration of technologies to a Singularity has greatly influenced contemporary futurists like Kurzweil and Moravec.

h+ magazine launch

Biosphere 2 (1991) by John P. Allen

Cover Stories:

• Designer Baby Controversy
• From X Prize to Singularity U
• Biohacking Arrives
• Legalize Sports Doping?
• Was That a Bot of a Human?
• Chris Conte's Microbotic Art

Features:

• Here Come the Neurobots
• Real Discrimination Against Virtual People
• The Man Behind Biosphere 2
• Everything of the Dead: The Future of Humanity is Zombie
• Life On Mars with Pete Worden

http://hplusmagazine.com/magazine

Dynamic Lighting

The Dynamic Lighting concept by Philips is an advanced lighting system that brings the dynamics of daylight into the working environment. Mirroring the diurnal rhythms found in nature, Dynamic Lighting recreates a stimulating ambience customizable to the individuals own preferences.

The creative workplace

Queen Mary Institute of Cell and Molecular Science
by Will Alsop 2005

Building for the Mind
Evaluating the cognitive effects of
workplace architecture

Powered by increased efficiency and consumer demand, Governments are now prioritising creativity and innovation as essential prerequisites for economic growth, placing new demands of flexibility and competition on the human body. Inspired by Marshall McLuhan’s notion of acoustic space,
this thesis questions whether the body has evolved to keep pace with such technological pressures. In the process of evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of ergonomic design, from the static nature of Taylorism to the transhumanist potential of ubiquitous computing, a final workplace design methodology aims to support how environmental stimuli may be used to enhance creative cognition.

Creativity Space

Google Zurich by Camenzind Evolution 2008
An article from the Walll Street Journal has provided a timely focus for my thesis:

"Today we are witnessing the advent of 24-hour knowledge factories. Spreading out across the globe with clusters of three or four facilities, each six to eight hours apart, was an idea first limited to 24-hour call centers and support staff for global communications networks. Now, thanks to more robust information technology and a growing acceptance of offshoring, the concept is feasible for a much broader range of work."
Dr. Amar Gupta The 24-hour Workplace,
Walll Street Journal Sep 14, 2007

While offshoring staff may be an option for many communications and manufacturing companies in the future, workplace environments in health, education and retail remain rooted to servicing localized communities. Therefore an understanding of how lighting technology can be applied to maximise the health and productivity of staff is essential. The key investigation for the thesis is specifically: How can architectural lighting assist the human body adapt to the 24-hour workplace? Prior to Henry Ford evolving the workplace from an 8hour space to a 3x8 (24) hour space, hospitals have been operating this culture for centuries. This is where my research begins...