Rory Sherlock
Diploma 14: Pier Vittorio Aureli and Maria ShĂŠhĂŠrazade Giudici
Breaking the Bottleneck: Appropriation of the Internet in the Nile Delta There is a stark contrast between the Internet as it is presented and the Internet as it exists in reality; between the volatility of the technology and the architecture it inhabits. It is not a distributed and socially liberating nebulous entity, but a physically grounded and manifest resource that can be appropriated to disempower those who depend on it. The project therefore seeks to make this process of appropriation evident and then to subvert it through an architectural
protocol for its counteraction within the context of informal housing development in Egypt. This is an attempt to move from weapons to protocols – a set of punctuating, citizen-led interventions that will effect change on the city and the state at large. In a world in which the Internet is itself used as a weapon in an increasingly militarised environment, it may be through space that we begin to respond.
Neighbourhood Panorama