Center vs place

This sketch shows a important development in my process. A center is introvert, it concentrates some action and people interested in this action, but at the same time excludes other activities/flexibility/people. Place is a more open place, and I see it as extrovert. Instead of making one thing I will suggest several. I will work on different locations in town where every place will work on integration of spaces/places/people/actions. This post should probably have come before that of the bath at Nøstet, because it is because of this decision that I got the idea of the bath. I will start working on the bath idea now that I have many ideas about it. Then adding with other programs on the other locations that I have looked at. I will work on the different locations at different depth, some will be more finished projects for my diploma.

Identity ~~~~~~

~ I like sitting at a coffee place. Being intimate with my friends, I can be around strangers. I get a chance of rebirth in every new encounter.

~~ This model is about process, mood and relations. The self can observe relational patterns - there are spaces that are more inclusive, or more closed. The nature of the place is communicated to the exterior as well as interior. The self stands in a big place.

Identity ~~~~~

~I can see you, quietly I write my journal in the sun. You are sitting on these same steps.

~~ This model is for example 1:1000. A high ceiling and wall structure. Opening inside-outside visually. Indoor spaces in humble contrast. Different people and activities in different spaces. The roof/wall grows, shrinks according to season - response to impermanence.

Identity ~~~~

~ All peoples... fears, joys and suffering. Many I know have spent time locked-up. Understanding comes to whom listens with pure intentions. See the smile in her eyes.

~~ Complexity is simplicity. This model in 1:1000 are some simple elements resting on a complex background. The complex background is two-dimensional, because of its incomprehensible nature. Simple ritual spaces rest in composition on the background.

Identity ~~~

~ Paradoxes are, dissolve and mirror. My perception I can choose and shift only in the past.

~~ This is a model in 1:200. A narrow space for quiet contemplation. Warp zone. Time travelling.

Identity ~~

~ My closest bring weight to my shoulders. My closest put me on a pedestal. I find my place next to people. Forever diving into his eyes.

~~ This vertical element is in 1:200. At the base is a firm self. At the top is a self on exploration. The whole humanity sent the self on this mission. It's a liquid space.

Identity ~

Based on the diagrams I posted on the last posts I made six small models last week. Today I looked at them again and made immediate comments. After that I looked at them as spaces/architecture and decided what I saw as spacial elements.

~ Humanity is an extension of myself. There are no borders, just space between. Sometimes a stranger is my mother and my mother my fellow citizen.

~~ This concept model is about flexibility in space between people. Space between people, space between zones/rooms.

Understanding ideologies

I made this sketch of some predominant ideologies, how they take shape and manifest. It is related to the last post. They describe hierarchies, political systems and power. Architecture has been used to strengthen political ideas. When we die, our opinions remain in the architecture. Architecture can be mountains, but they can also be more organic and flexible to change. You need dynamite to blow up a mountain, but flowers and other plants grow on the mountain, slowly transforming its shape. When on the mountain side the mountain is not so powerfully present; you experience the plants, the trees, the flowers, the small mushrooms, hear birds, see the sun or the rain, listen to water running...

Cosmopolitanism vs. Hierocles

Another graphic I have been working on. Upper two rows Hierocles circle of identiy, lower row cosmopolitanism ideology. As an overview Hierocles defines degrees of identity, might add trust and care, to the ones close to you in life - the cosmopolitan ideal is to draw all degrees closer to your self. What I find interesting in this comparison is that Hierocles view clearly defines spaces between people, but the cosmopolitan view tries to eliminate these spaces.

Assimilation vs integration

Assimilation cartoon from HarmonyStorm.com.

Assimilation: similar - the same. To become similar to something. Sameness. (by extension) The absorption of new ideas into an existing cognitive structure. The adoption, by a minority group, of the customs and attitudes of the dominant culture. (wiktionary

Cultural assimilation is a political response to the demographic fact of multi-ethnicity which encourages absorption of the minority into the dominant culture. It is opposed to affirmative philosophy (for example, multiculturalism) which recognizes and seeks to maintain differences.

Researchers have assessed that assimilation exists among immigrants because we can measure assimilation on four primary benchmarks. These core measurable aspects of immigrant assimilation that were formulated to study European immigrants to the United States are still the starting points for understanding current immigrant assimilation. These measurable aspects of assimilation are socioeconomic status, spatial concentration, language attainment, and intermarriage.^[3]

1. Socioeconomic Status is defined by educational attainment, occupation, and income. By measuring socioeconomic status researchers want to find out if immigrants eventually catch up to native-born people in terms of human capital characteristics.
2. Spatial Concentration is defined by geography or residential patterns. The spatial residential model (based on theories of Park) proposed by Massey states that increasing socioeconomic attainment, longer residence in the U.S, and higher generational status lead to decreasing residential concentration for a particular ethnic group.^[8].
3. Language Attainment is defined as the ability to speak English and the loss of the individual's mother tongue. The three-generation model of language assimilation states that the first generation makes some progress in language assimilation but remains dominant in their native tongue, the second generation is bilingual, and the third-generation only speaks English.^[3]
4. Intermarriage is defined by race or ethnicity and occasionally by generation.^[3] High rates of intermarriage are considered to be an indication of social integration because it reveals intimate and profound relations between people of different groups, intermarriage reduces the ability of families to pass on to their children a consistent ethnic culture and thus is an agent of assimilation.^[9] Intermarriage came under particular scrutiny by the Jewish community in the early-mid 20th century as Jewish leaders more and more often turned to social scientists to explain why Judaism was a typically endogamic religion. Although intermarriage was viewed as a firm base from which to begin an argument for assimilation, it was also seen as a way to gradually ease the transition into their new culture. Julius Draschler, a graduate student at Columbia University, believed that as long as people are allowed to maintain some differences, such as the Jewish practice of only marrying another Jew, they will delay the inevitable while simultaneously enriching the nation in the process of their slow assimilation. While Draschler acknowledged that assimilation was the ultimate endpoint for all American groups, he hoped to prove through his intermarriage studies that, the more gradual the process, the better. Such need to justify (or vilify) the intermarriage practice became increasingly important after the 1950's as Jews (as well as other typically endogamic cultures, such as African-Americans) began to engage in more exogamic relationships.^[10] (wikipedia).