Archiprix International 2001
Technische Universität Graz, Fakultät für Architektur - Graz, Austria
Jörg Kindermann
Wolfgang Schneider
Tutors: Prof. Jean Marie Corneille Meuwissen
The title of this work was chosen with reference to the concept of complexity in physics and mathematics, and the concept of exformation in communication theory.Hence our information society is perceived as tiring not because it contains too much information, but rather because it contains too little. Impoverishment of sensual perception and the lack of importance of information flow turn into a social problem. People have been reduced to a lower bandwidth and start feeling bored. Architecture as form of information is threatened with the same fate.Exformation stands for the total amount of information, which is singled out before communication.The central theme of this work is housing and housing construction, with focus on the situation of social housing in Austria.In short the results of the analyses are as follows:1. The aim is a sophisticated, seductive, sensual housing construction with a clear characteristic for the formation of identity.2. It seems that the idea of ‘a network controlled by a creature’ has partially lost some of its threat. Today it seems that people’s fear of not being seen is greater than that of being watched.3. Urbanity is characterised as the positive reduction of speechless distance, intensification of contacts with the ability to articulate, a civilised treatment of the neighbour on the basis of tolerance and capability to resolve conflicts4. ‘Family values’ - are still the basis of a social and just order of society (and housing policy) - if the family is intact, state and society are too. Despite this, neither high divorce rates, nor cohabitation, all forms of post-familiar forms of relationships and upbringing, not to mention homosexual partnerships, led to the much-lamented moral decay and hence social catastrophe.