Miessen, M. and S. Basar (2004). Did someone say participate?

An atlas of spatial
practice. Boston, MIT Press.

Introduction: did we mean participate or did we mean something else?

In the wake of 9/11 the relationships between sp[ace, politics and power have come
to the fore in almost all zones of cultural activity (22)
ROLE OF THE ARCHITECT:To dismantle the idea of the architect being the one in
charge of space (22)
According to the authors, this dismantling is being implemented in many disciplines
which approach themes which were once considered as a disciplinary and practical
prerogative of the architect; these spatial knowledges are being produced by architects
going beyond classic views of architectural theory and practice, and by non-architects
venturing in the social practices related to space, These new and disciplinarily blurred
spatial knowledges have the common interest of
SI: understanding, produc[ing] and altering of spatial conditions as a pre-requisite of
identifying the broader reaches of political reality (23)

Murphy, M. (2004). Glimpses of a future architecture, 68-79.

Architecture is neither a dangerous nor an impotent profession, but a pliable system for
the application of physical constraints and the effectuation of political and social ends
(68).
The greatest asset of architecture is its inability to exist without performing both
organizational and psychological functions. (68)
it is the inescapable symbiosis of pace and psychological state that is critical to a future
where architecture assumes an important role in a drive to increase empathy levels
between humans (68)
space will become the primary tool for disorientation and demoralization and will result,
ultimately in the violation of human rights (69)
If empathy requires observation and contact, a social-spatial ambition to remove
architectural obstacles to human interaction and to introduce spatial features that
encourage communication it becomes all the more pertinent in the context of hospitals
and other environments where psychological stresses are commonplace.

The most futuristic architecture concentrate on new materials technologies (or

organizational changes which seem to justify non-Cartesian geometries)
The future is a design problem (79)

Weizman, E. (2004). Architecture, power unplugged: Gaza evacuations, 275-272.

Homes have alternatively been referred to as a physical entities embodying power
relations, the symbol of a set of ideologies, a sentient (even haunted) active agent, a
military weapon, a diplomatic bargaining chip, an economic resource, the fabric of a
crime, a physical hazard, an accumulation of toxic waste, the infrastructure of utopia,
dystopia, or sometimes both. (258)
[the chapter] question[s] the more general notions concerning the possible re-use of
architecture, and in particular the architecture of exclusion, violence, and control at the
moment such architecture is unplugged from the socio-political-military power that had
been sustaining it. (258)
geometry of vision = shaping the built environment, using architecture in ways which
make it easier to survey the surrounding environment. (259)
In [] The Wretched of the Earth Frantz Fanon already warned of the possible
corruption of national, anti-colonial regimes insisting that the physical and the territorial
organization of the colonial world may eventually mark out the lines on which a
colonized society will be organized (269)