The machine as a metaphor for efficiency.
The machine represents progress, control, and transformation, serving as a framework for organising space and human behaviour. Pimlott highlights how the machine can function as both a tool of repression through strict regulation and surveillance. The machine’s ability to process and transform users, whether in hospitals, prisons, or public interiors like train stations and department stores particularly stood out to us. These spaces are designed to guide movement and shape behaviour, often through reasonable yet highly effective interventions. The machine’s aesthetic is not just about appearance but about total performance in how it functions, interacts with users, and represents innovation to the observer. Its efficiency lies in the ability to create spaces that can accommodate diverse uses without losing clarity or purpose. This balance between control and liberation, rigidity and flexibility, becomes the central theme in our thinking.
The central SG space becomes a machine by vigorously controlling program, movement, and light. The machine will separate with curtains, one on each side of the hall. In the machinist spirit of efficiency and progress, our installation will accommodate nine different uses with the introduction of only four new elements. Every piece of installed fabric, every square meter of existing space, will be assigned a clear function. This structured yet flexible framework will ease the burden on both users and organisers. Through regulated performance, all extraordinary and ordinary uses will now be able to seamlessly alternate and coexist in one place.
from an ambiguous no-man’s-land into a performative machine.