the secret lives of buildings 2 Work

finally found episode 2, so here's a new incoherent batch of notes;

Well to start off with, I really did need to find this episode for my work since I thought it would be relevant, and thankfully it was.'Work' focuses on offices and other places of work such as schools and factories, interestingly enough, workplaces within the home and artisan type businesses were excluded, but what was more important in this programme was the controlling powers from above and their influence on the tiny workers below. I get a strong sense of positive socialism in these programmes, a disdain for the capitalism of the post-modernist architects, and I like it.

Schools
so first up was the Kingsdale school in London Southwark:

school before

school after

The problem before had been unruly behaviour in the corridors due to lack of space. This was solved with clear, spacious mobility spaces, as embodied in the large covered space created in the old courtyard. Creating a much more pleasant and calmer environment for students.
  Productivity also went up with expulsion down to 0 from 280 a year, and pupils gained on average 5 GCSE's. all from creating a space to be proud of. Details such as joints on big dome done to a human scale are small examples of an effort to create a much more rational space

office and foster

Then they showed the Willis building. A building I've never liked in publications, but that could be due to the 70s haircuts in the photos and not the actual building. Turns out all the social spaces, such as the swimming pool and lobby all created a great place to work.

then this happened:

Then it moved on to the gherkin, Norman Fosters other office building.

Only this time Dykkoff was angry, or just a bit baffled. Norman Foster, had failed him. What it lacked was the simplest of human touches. Foster tried to tell him "intuitively...you want to produce something beautiful" and used other beautiful analogies like 'pottery makes' which really did romanticise the whole architect thing but ultimately the large open plan spaces had been destroyed by the capitalist bastards de loittes who by the end of the episode we all come to hate.

Factories
Then Zaha Hadid suddenly redeemed herself from the last episode with the beautiful BMW factory in Leipzig;

It was "stimulating, exciting" and best of all democratic.

The most beautiful thing about it was probably the ingenuity to it all. Connecting the factory back to the offices is the production line floating above the whole workforces heads. Best of all the smell and sounds are almost unnoticeable and the sight of the products emphasises the whole idea of working together and moral; connecting everyone together. Later in the canteen, workers are also encouraged to eat together; it's all very modern, and very democratic.

office and the cure

Interpolis Tilburg The Netherlands

The Dutch architect gave workers different types of spaces for different types of work. Kind of like home and it was "really joyful". By this point Dykhoff was beaming.

The idea was you manage on trust. people do the work and come and show it after, kind of like home work. the architect explains "in the old system you think you can control everything and everybody but that's impossible".

Deloitte tries to copy this in the gherkin with the aid of an annoying psychologist.
"make it more homely, even add a house plant"
plants people have chosen themselves. this just ends up a little pitiful, sure its something but its not really enough and Fosters left having to deal with it, looking at how capitalism has ruined his beautiful building.


finally 
herman hertzberger's building in the Netherlands proves to be perfect