Ka-man Lam
Directed Research l Prof. Marc Böhlen, Prof. Mark Shepard, Prof. Dr. Teri Rueb l University at Buffalo l Fall 2016
How will life be like, reduced to the ultimate minimum?
Or - in the face of neoliberalist real estate, networked globalization and decentralization, how far will human livelihoods be reduced to the bare minimum, be it voluntarily or involuntarily?
System Existenzminimum is a speculative design addressing the fundamental notion of human dwelling among technological parameters of today, where a networked sociality seems to outsource daily aspects of life to networks, that traditional notion of anchoring a secure life to unaffordable home might be disrupted.
The design is situated in the city of Hong Kong, the world’s most expensive and unaffordable real estate market. Through lens of seeing architecture as territory, as product of regulations, as real estate, as bodily autonomy, as distributed networks, and most importantly, as shelter to existential and material threats, we question ourselves - how far can radical reduction and networks save us from the irony of contemporary societies? How may we understand the lightness of being?
Project exhibited at Hong Kong Design Institute, Hong Kong Polytechnic University InnoTower
Video: https://youtu.be/-rnjtQZrkA4
Website: www.existenzminimum.net (under construction)
Bibliography:
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