The 2023 winning recipient of the Substance Design Forum Competition at Iowa State University. This award winning project seeks to understand the underground of the fashion industry, which has direct parallels to the state of architecture in this capitalistic world.
The State of Architecture
by Isabella Villalpando, in collaboration with Morgan Bennett, Nathan Oh, & Aditi Vaidya
by Isabella Villalpando, in collaboration with Morgan Bennett, Nathan Oh, & Aditi Vaidya
Why are we both 6 feet above and 6 feet below at the same time? Because we are living in an underground.
Professor Kathryn Yusoff, a renowned expert in inhuman geography at Queen Mary University of London, delves into the intersection of subjectivity and materiality in the context of the earth’s dynamic events. Her research highlights the extractive practices in the built environment that form an underground and reveals the use of the camera as a tool of exploitation that dehumanizes and belittles its subjects through the colonial lens. The colonial lens perpetuates the exploitation of racialized worlds concealed by architecture. Professor Yusoff poses a thought-provoking question, asking us to consider the possibility of decolonizing the future of architecture. She invites us to start by examining the overwhelming noise that clutters our minds as a means of beginning our analysis.
This project aims to explore into the depths of the fashion industry with the objective of comprehending the far-reaching underground currents that permeate society as a whole. The fashion industry has a long history of exploiting racialized communities, especially through the use of sweatshops in countries where labor is cheap and regulations are lax. These sweatshops often force workers, who are predominantly people of color, to work long hours in unsafe and inhuman conditions for little pay. The extractive practices of the fashion industry contribute to the perpetuation of systemic inequality and oppression. Additionally, the fashion industry’s use of the camera and media to present a narrow and idealized standard of beauty reinforces societal norms and perpetuates harmful stereotypes. This standard is often based on a Eurocentric aesthetic, further marginalizing communities of color and perpetuating harmful power dynamics. The exploitation of racialized communities in the fashion industry is a form of systemic oppression that must be recognized and addressed in order for real progress towards equality and justice to be made.
Can we decolonize the future of architecture?
As Yusoff asked us all:
What if we begin our analysis of architecture through what and who disappeared in the process of development?
What if we begin our analysis of architecture through what and who disappeared in the process of development?
1. Kathryn Yusoff’s translation of the word “underground”:
“It is a subterranean spatiality that is always under pressure from the weight of the division of surface and underground states. Yet, the underground is also the possibility and spatial autonomy of opacity in plain sight. It is somewhere to dig in and plot,” Kathryn Yusoff, 2021
“It is a subterranean spatiality that is always under pressure from the weight of the division of surface and underground states. Yet, the underground is also the possibility and spatial autonomy of opacity in plain sight. It is somewhere to dig in and plot,” Kathryn Yusoff, 2021
2. In reference to Kathryn Yusoff’s analysis and question watch, “Kathryn Yusoff, Geo-Logics:Natural Resources as Necropolitics.” Youtube, uploaded by Harvard GSD, 16 November, 2020, timestamp 51:33 / 1:12:55, url link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM8B-XZG8OQ
Artist Book
edited by Isabella Villalpando, in collaboration with Morgan Bennett, Nathan Oh, & Aditi Vaidya
edited by Isabella Villalpando, in collaboration with Morgan Bennett, Nathan Oh, & Aditi Vaidya
This artist book is an archive of the work developed under Professor Mitchell Squire. Iowa State University’s College of Design: Architecture Program, Fall semester 2022. ARCH 403: Impossible Architecture Studio: Public Service Announcement (PSA) 2023.
