SEMESTER 1.5: TEDz Talk Video and Moving Forward

A month after presenting my TEDz talk, I decided that it would be best to reflect on the talk in order to begin a process of moving forward and completing some of my intended tasks from the previous semester.

I have now edited and compiled a final video, which displays the TEDz talk below. The sound clip will be edited once the audio from the microphone is available, but currently the quality is reduced due to using the sound from one of the cameras:

Reflecting on 'Gathering Dust: Living in an Age of Neglected Items', I have a few points that I would like to add / consider:

• There is a lack of awareness of what we own and do not utilise. We all need to declutter, in one way or another. I was initially made aware of this issue through research, but it wasn't until I began putting it into practice that I realised just how much of my items (and also space) in my home that I do not utilise. Somehow, the proposal must work in the domestic scale and the personal scale to encourage others to declutter. In one way, there may need to be an incentive or motivation, and hopefully the proposal for the Sharehouse, or another objective can be enough.

• The architectural manifestation of my research is currently lagging behind and isn't thoroughly thought through. It also is not ambitious enough for what I am proposing. If I want to genuinely state that we're living in an age of neglected items and that we are battling this large issue, the proposal also needs to be attractive, engaging and convincing. Right now, it feels like a regular building or a community centre. Somehow, I need to translate the proposal into a more engaging architecture proposal.

• I have not considered the digital environment in the TEDz talk, but recently I have been reading about the internet and who owns our digital environment. I have also been considering the internet's central role to controlling the way in which we may exchange social relationships and item exchanges. I would like to incorporate the digital cityscapes that I have created of DS1 into my work.

• The context: Barton as a social landscape is disconnected to the rest of the city. This is emphasised by the fact that the only pedestrian access into Barton is through dark underpasses below the ring road. There is no dignifying pedestrian route into the area. It is primarily built for road access. No bridges, no pedestrian crossing. Just two underpasses. This is a problem in many ways. Those with pushchairs and those who are in wheelchairs struggle. You are less likely to go through the underpass on your own late at night, and it can be quite an unpleasant space. Perhaps this is a manifestation of how Barton may even be seen as a 'neglected' our 'outside' part of the city, especially given its history. Perhaps my proposal can challenge these notions.

• I have also recently been reading and engaging in a topic called 'Supernormal Stimulus', which I will explore in another blog post and it may be the theory that drives my work during Semester 2. It links into what I mentioned in the TEDz talk about consumerism being more of a 'heart' issue and it actually engages with human values that are misplaced. Linked to the fact that consumerism is driven by a craving for novelty, subjective enjoyment and instability.

With these thoughts, over the next few weeks I will tackle each of these points, whilst also researching how I can translate each point architecturally. Whether it may be through researching a material, details, a system and also developing the project in general.