Vacillate

Jeffrey Xu

Supervisor: Dean Boothroyd & Prof. Mark Jacques

The architect is often too eager to offer a comprehensive solution, in offering such rigid answers - the object is always prone to collapse.

To vacillate is to be caught between two forces, and to resolve a problem we must recognise that there is an ostensible issue.

This project does not seek to establish a new paradigm for the architect but instead looks to explore how we operate under duress, and respond to external forces. Rather than viewing the architect under the guise of a master designer, it pursues an understanding of the influence the architect holds within existing systems.

Negotiating between the speculation of an object and the spectacle of its commodification, this project investigates alternate ways to utilise developer tools, and informal but real occupation of spaces, taking a back seat from design in a traditional sense, the design influence of both the market, and spaces in occupation are brought to light.

The project aims to apply both a methodology of universality and utilitarianism, in conceding the building is artificial and separate from the environment, it is able to reconcile with both, allowing the architecture to act as a document and a lens to frame contemporary cultural and economic forces, rather than stating one regardless of environment.

There is no single answer to the financialisation of architecture, and the systems of collapse it triggers, but ideally in its acknowledgement, and incorporation into real spaces, the architect is decentered from the architecture.

Copyright © 2021 RMIT University Terms Privacy Accessibility Website feedback Complaints ABN 49 781 030 034 CRICOS provider number: 00122A RTO Code: 3046