THE GERM: INVADING THE BUILT WORLD. MADALYN ASKER

ARCHITECTURE IS COLLUDING WITH VIOLENCE.

IDEOLOGICAL STORIES HAVE SPATIAL CONSEQUENCES.

DESIGNERS ARE APART OF THE PROBLEM.

A GERM CAN CAN ENTER ENTER AS AN AGENT FOR CHANGE.

THE STORY OF THE GERM The Germ as defiance in highways Calls out segregation in Access to wealth, resources and human dignity

The germ as errant in highways Disrupts the movement from A to B Drifting from one event to the next Continuous interconnectivity

The Germ as joy in schools Looks round, colorful and abundant.

From it a propulsive force of celebration Arises and builds connection

The germ as imagination in parks Begins with the rearrangement of neurons To alter some ingrained habits of mind Changing the activity in world made antiBlack In a world with a divided class

The germ as errant in housing Is temporal rather than spatial Is remaking rather than reconditioning Is a revolution against the line A germ can enter as an agent for change The Germ as defiance in civic buildings Looks like the switching of narratives Being told by the voices that have been crushed with whiteness, marble + monuments The Germ as joy changes sprawl in housing In claimed land as control In the way that Sam says “I am the I am” In the Ten Black Commandments as a property loan The germ as imagination in highways Points to the discrepancies of power To Goliath posing as David A germ can enter as an agent for change The germ as errant in schools changes making money for the sake of money to learning for the sake of of learning The Germ as defiance in state parks Grieves the going out of community And the coming in of command + control It asks: What has Architecture taken away from us?

A germ as imagination in civic buildings is a dam for damage a reliquary for breath and water The Germ as defiance in schools Rewrites the impoverished typology As accessible experiential insertions Scattered across a landscape A germ can enter as an agent for change The germ as joy in parks Reclaims, gathers, and channels energy A singing revolution The germ as imagination in public housing is more performative that prescriptive An ontology of less waste and less work A germ can enter as an agent for change Dig them up or yank them out Spade over them- they will be back Those weeds of injustice- they never left.

The sprouts thread roots Through a network of histories and identities All bound to the same dirt If a Germ was to enter the soil The activity would shift The chemistry would change And the weeds would no longer grow

talk

Genesis of The Germ

that talk

talk

The Germ is a ‘mind tool’ which is essential when articulating and representing what might be. To ponder the overlapping of words and worlds begins with corporeal metaphors that have the capacity to extend these reflections into political spaces.

what is ‘the germ?’

the future demands poets & visionaries

THE THEGERM GERMAS AS THE GERM IN

THE MATRIX

THE DEFIANT HIGHWAY

JOYFUL HOUSING

JOY CREATES A MOMENTUM FOR UNITY AND A UNIFIED POPULOUS IS HARD TO CONTROL.

In housing, the Germ disregards the fact that every space is a claimed space in which the utopic dream of the US is being preserved. Everyplace is what Foucault describes as a heterotopia, which means that the ideals that are being projected are enacted by whoever is in power in a

society. We, as the non-elite, don’t have access to this resource. But the Germ provides space that is unclaimed so we can enact our own heterotopia.

IMAGINATIVE PARKS

THE GERM + NARRATIVE

The Germ is critiquing why we have adopted a visual language of classical architecture and white marble that has come to represent whiteness and power. The germ has embarked on a cultural war that pushes against this celebration of Anglo European heritages which descends on something more troubling-the protection of social order.

DEFIANT CIVIC BUILDINGS

ERRANT IN SCHOOLS The subtle ways capitalism is enacting a population to consume and produce, allow the Germ to insert itself. The Germ turns goal oriented learning into learning for the sake of learning.

Since the arrival of the germ, the creation of new knowledge has increased.

The social injustice that has been a part of the highway makes it ripe for the Germ to grow.

Highways were being built just as courts around the country were striking down traditional tools of racial segregation. The possibility of integration was just on the horizon.

And so, very intentionally highways were built on the formal boundary line used for racial zoning. The imaginative highway is a remedial device that not only points to the dark history of the highway but also creates a moment of unity.

HOW IS ARCHITECTURE COLLUDING WITH INSTITUIONS TO DEFINE, CLASSIFY, CONTROL, AND REGULATE PEOPLE?

IT’S NOT NOW. IT’S NOT FREE. IT’S NOT RIGHT. IT DOESN’T ALWAYS WORK