Archipelago

archipelago

1. a group of islands.

   • a sea or stretch of water containing many islands.

You cannot design for everyone specifically but you can design specifically with everyone in mind when it comes to metropolises. In order to design for everyone that creates the congestion of a metropolis you have to design not with a mass of people in mind but with numerus individuals in mind. Let me explain through the three conclusions that Koolhaas pointed out yet in a different order to work from the macro to micro for clarity.

Let’s start at conclusion 2 and instead of thinking of a mass of people, let’s narrow it down to two very different people.  John works for a library sorting books and Anna works out the Gym every day. Because of the congestion of the metropolis landscape both programs need to be in the same building yet to succeed in the design of the building both John and Anna need to feel like the building belongs to them and is the place they belong.  Below are some images of two buildings, one is a Duck and one is a Decorated Shed.

Anna would not feel at home in the building on the top and neither would John feel at home in the building on the bottom yet if the building completely separated itself from the program and became a piece of art that strikes at emotions on an aesthetic level then both people could feel at home their because both will look at it and pull different meaning from the aesthetics and align what they see with their own program.

Koolhaas’s third conclusion talks about functional interior programing VS metaphorical programing and I when congestion is the main theme you would think that Functional interior spaces would be the best yet Koolhaas says otherwise.  Functionality is normally paired with efficiency which when working with large crowds winds up looking like Pink Floyd's music video from “The Wall.”

People Shuffled through like cattle to the slaughter. 

Instead Koolhaas takes the lesson from John Donne’s poem “Devotions upon Emergent Occasions” in which he states that “No Man is an Island” yet we all want to be individualized. Therefore instead of an assembly line create an artistic metaphor that will invoke something different for everyone becoming individualized for everyone creating the feeling that “I am an island” as sang by Paul Simon.

Lastly and for Koolhaas firstly is conclusion 1 which when put simply is that no one wants to be left out on an one to one level.  We should do all we can to utilize technology to give a space and an experience to everyone that uses our work.  If it is not possible by common means of construction, it is our responsibility to invent and create a new way to embrace every user of our space.

In my own conclusion I believe that Koolhaas is explaining why architects should be allowed to be artistic with their designs and allowed to create pieces of art that stand on their own without requiring a program to define the form of the building.  In creating a piece of art everyone can break away from the congestion of the metropolis and move onto their own small island for made just for them and escape the chaos the congestion creates.