A House for the Populace

Investigation # 2

The world’s populations are increasingly living in cities.
If a media mogul may build a skyscraper for one family in one of the most poverty stricken cities in the world, let us investigate about a  “house for the populace.”

Mumbai, India.

Absurdities_

India’s richest magnate, Mukesh Ambani, whose reported wealth is $29.0 billion, has finished construction on his 27 story (520 foot) house in Mumbai. The  house, named Antilia, (harkening to the mythical city) is now the most expensive house in the world.   The house has 600 live in attendants and a slew of amenities such as a personal parking garage and service center for his 168 imported cars. I cannot help but leverage this absurdity with an early Macintosh poster entitled “Bongo’s dream house.”

The competition for the design of the house was won by Perkins + Will in 2004. The house which features green technologies developed by Perkins + Will is strangely familiar to MVRDV’s dutch pavilion for the 2000 Hanover World Expo.

Mumbai is a city of polarities. At one end of the spectrum, the city is the largest economic force in India and receives 40% of india’s flights. By the year 2015, Mumbai will be the second largest city in the world behind Tokyo. Rents in the cities’ financial heart outpace any city in the world per square foot. Additonally, Mumbai is the production center for Bollywood, which is the world’s largest movie industry.

Polarities_

Mumbai has one of the world’s largest slums. With 60% of the city living in slums, the wealth distribution in Mumbai is incredibly antithetical. In 2003, there were 17 public toilets for every million people, and currently 33% of the city has no access to drinkable water.

Despite the comparison between Atilia and its’ extreme opulence and absurdity, what does this mean for the densification of cities? The other side of the economic spectrum in Mumbai is incredible split, both in terms of architectural typology, and in economics of wealth. Are there architectural solutions that begin to have a  hybrid middle ground? As the slums grow can the notion of verticalism help alleviate problems? What type of economic or social systems need to be displaced in order to enact change?

Situational Crisis

Noumenal:

In the philosophy of Kant, an object as it is in itself independent of the mind, as opposed to a phenomenon. Also called thing-in-itself.

Noumena are the basic realities behind all sensory experience. According to Kant, they are not knowable because they cannot be perceived, but they must be thinkable because moral decision making and scientific investigation cannot proceed without the assumption that they exist.

Contingency:

Dependent on or conditioned by something else

Determinism:

A theory or doctrine that acts of the will, occurrences in nature, or social or psychological phenomena are causally determined by preceding events or natural laws

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Noumenal contingencies are a paradox. Contingencies, or situations, exist everywhere. They may define one’s day-to-day activities. Noumenal contingencies are unknowable situations that exist in one’s mind. The view that situations are always tied to each other’s actions is an idea developed by determinism. Certain situations radically rupture lives and our environment that surrounds us. These ruptures may carry incredible weight in time. Noumenal as they are unperceived, but situational, as they will continue another chain of actions or situations. The point of departure from a chain of events is the rupturing in time of a lineage of contingencies. Thus the investigations of noumenal contingencies may bring about a physical noumenal reality in which we can further prevent (or simply become prepared) for phenomenological ruptures in time.

Investigation # 1:

How can the inevitable void of a failed campus be utilized for new use?
Can this rupture in time be examined beforehand in order to change the outcome of the inevitable?

Universities and schools around Japan are collapsing in the current economic state. One such university is Eichi University (now St. Thomas University) in Amagasaki, Japan. The economy in conjunction with strict emphasis on high school testing and placement known as “cram school,” reduces the need for college for Japanese students. Enrollment at Eichi University has continued to spiral and attempts to contain enrollment decline have included the building of the highest tower in Amagasaki, to enforce the campus as a landmark. The university announced in 2010 that it will close its doors in 2014.

The problem of colleges in Japan is a national one. The emphasis on the high school system has led to a weaker array of colleges. Specific economies may collapse within Japan leaving some colleges to succumb to the fall in the economy, but now more than ever students are going overseas to study.

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