Defining Architectural Speeds: A Spatial Investigation and Documentation of the concept of Slowness and the Culture of Speed
Abstract
By investigating modern spaces of productivity we begin to recognize how the culture of work specifically in the United States has altered our perceptions of spaces of leisure and spaces of productivity. The concept of “Spaces of productivity” may sound ambiguous or up to interpretation and that is essentially what I am questioning. How have spaces of productivity become indistinguishable from spaces of leisure and rest? Today The Slow movement emerges as a reaction to the negative impacts of the capitalist ideology, in an effort to protect not only our health, that be the mind and body, but the planet as well. I am investigating the ways in which spatial design helps create this phenomenon of indistinguishable speeds. Documenting these spaces is important because it represents a physical manifestation of how our work life and non-work life are being combined. The commodification of slowness contradicts the concept of slowness entirely. Creating profit off of leisure is an industry not slowness. By distinguishing objects of leisure and objects of productivity the user can have a new perspective on how the implementation of slowness blurs the boundaries of work and leisure, ultimately with the intention of creating more space for production. By creating an embroidered floor plan of these spaces, the abstraction of their physical objects will display how the boundaries of leisure and work exist in the same space yet derive from two categories
May, 2025