"I Will Jump if ..."

Here’s a paradox to this posting.
I will actually jump from the fourth floor of a building, if:

… the building was on fire and there is a slide from the window to the ground where strong-built firemen were waiting to catch me :)
… the building I was in was at the scale of 1:10 (which would reduce the height from about 15m to 1.5m)
… I had with me a parasail (still can’t afford trying it in real life)
… I suddenly got the courage to bungee-jump
… by jumping and dying I will make my life statement (inspired by Coldplay’s Rush of Blood to the Head: “I’m gonna buy a gun and start a war … If you can tell me something worth fighting for …”)

What will you jump for?

Will You Jump? … Lives on “Autopilot”

If I ask you to open the window on a fourth floor, go out, and jump – will you jump?

Mid term review in my architectural design studio. With 17 students presenting, similar patterns soon were becoming obvious: every single one of my students proposed their designs in the form of (mostly color-coded) boxes. Even now that I have to go over the images for grading purposes, I start to get confused which models belong to which student: they look that much alike (no offense to my students).

Yulia Lukito, a friend and a lecturer at Universitas Indonesia who came to be our guest critic for the day, wondered why students who had 17 different clients, 17 different studies and data could end up with very similar methods to represent their proposals. At some point she actually asked permission from one of the students to take the boxes apart, and crumpled them to make a point that the shape of these boxes are very confining as study models.

I started wondering how could this happenned. Then I remembered making a passing comment to one of my students about the way he represented his study which incorporated color-coded boxes. I told him that to be consistent, he should be using the same color-code in his future models so he could easily remember what that color represents. As it turned out, sixteen other students did exactly the same, when my point was about being consistent, not to specifically use color-coded boxes.

Upon reflection of the review, I asked my students: “If I ask you to open the window, go out, and jump, will you jump?” They all looked at me as if I had gone mad. But within a few seconds, some started to smile, and said “Of course not!” I asked them again “Why not?” Then one responded, “But we’ll die!” So now they’re thinking …

Here’s a quote:

“Most people, most of the time, do not think of themselves as reflexively responding to complex signals and cues …, they mostly operate on ‘autopilot’. This socially skilled but unreflective reproduction of practices, norms, and values [are what Pierre] Bourdieu [a sociologist] refers to as the Doxa or ‘doxic experience’.
Simon Parker, “Urban Theory and the Urban Experience”, Routledge, 2004: 143.

Think! … Even when your life is not threatened by death.

Pride before Function

Yesterday’s Kompas featured several articles on consumption. One of the articles here noted that according to AC Nielsen study, 93% of Indonesian consumers are recreational shoppers, while “only” 68% of American society –known as consumer society – are recreational shoppers [1]. Consumption of goods contributed to 66.5% of Indonesian gross national production in 2004, and it increased to 74% in year 2005.

In another article here, Rhenald Kasali noted that in Indonesian society:

Derajat seseorang dinilai berdasarkan apa yang Anda miliki atau apa yang Anda pakai. Untuk menunjukkan jati dirinya orang cenderung berbelanja berlebihan.

This may explain similar attitude in design of houses in Indonesia, where consumption rules. If you wonder what I mean, all you need to do is to drive along upper housing complexes part of Pantai Indah Kapuk, Pondok Indah (the main avenue), or Lippo Karawaci and you’ll see houses that look like wedding cakes (the extremely elaborate one with curly icings), in more elaborate shapes and colors, but in a scale so huge you’ll start wondering how many families actually live there.

My sister Yenna, who is a branding consultant, calls this “Pride before Function”. The term “Form Follows Function” (a principal associated with modernism movement in architecture) means that function should be the foundation for design and therefore guide the resulting form. The term “Pride before Function” means that whatever form the design takes and however well the design functions are not as important as the pride and prestige that the design would bring to the owners.

Following the quotation above, Rhenald Kasali wrote:

Prinsip ini berbeda benar dengan upaya membangun karakter bangsa yang menekankan pada kekuatan jati diri, mulai dari kematangan berpikir, kerendahhatian, pendidikan, dan kepedulian sosialnya.

Pretty scary, huh?

Note
[1]. The article mentioned that AC Nielsen survey covered only consumers with access to internet, only 8% of Indonesian society.

Libraries as Doors

A competition brief for City of Stockholm public library:

“Libraries should be door-openers showing visitors new ways of learning and experiencing, as well as maintaining and reinforcing their own cultural capital in a variety of ways.” [Added italics].

Contrast that with this comment from Raynata:

"... Have you gone the library now? Now we've to leave all our stuff in the locker... "

in this posting. In this case, the library is door-closers showing visitors only one way of learning and experiencing: you have to belong to the university and you must relinquish all your belongings to access it :)

A --> B =/= B --> A

A crop of an ad in Kompas: This is Jakarta!

Travelling time from point A to point B is often not equal from point B to point A. Look at the difference in time between weekdays and weekends!