more on code, including a small skyscraper

Some more thoughts on this question of code.

I just spent a good part of my morning dealing with various kinds of bureaucratic nightmares: retrieving my American Express online id, dealing with insurance on a broken product (since broken again), inquiring about how to use my flexible spending account, getting refunds for improperly processed shipping labels produced by the postal service's junky website, and—when that failed—processing fraudulent transaction claims against the USPS. I think there were a few more things, but I've forgotten now.

Am I an extreme case? Perhaps. Maybe the advocates of post-criticism live in an age of smoothness and effortlessly navigate through the maze of bureaucracies that form key parts of the networks in network culture. I don't. For me, it's a constant and horrible battle that takes up a good part of my day. Code is often not fun. Code limits. Code restricts. But sometimes, maybe, code can be hacked as the following text about artist Chris Burden suggests. I originally wrote this for the 2003 Forum Annual from the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design.

Hacking a Small Skyscraper

In 1991, while planning a studio on his property, artist Chris Burden became frustrated by Los Angeles County building codes and, in response, sketched his "Small Skyscraper."

small skyscraper diagram

Small Skyscraper forms something of a reaction to the stalemate being reached in Southern California, and increasingly elsewhere, as forces such as NIMBYist Neighborhood Councils, environmental regulations, view preservation ordinances, historic preservation areas, draconian zoning codes, building review boards, restrictive covenants, and other governmental and non-governmental organizations create an intractable micro-bureaucracy of obstacles. This new ecology of red tape, rules, and regulations increasingly comes to shape our landscape. Individuals find themselves struggling not with nature but with the constraints put upon them by the "second nature" that contemporary society generates.

Burden envisioned Small Skyscraper as a means of exploiting a loophole in the Los Angeles County building code that excludes out-buildings less than 400 square feet in size and below 32 feet in height from any oversight or review by the building department. Small Skyscraper, then, followed the familiar mantra of the developer and built to the maximum permissible building envelope: stacking four 10 foot by 10 foot rooms on top of one another in a 32 foot high structure.

 

small skyscraper in basel

 

For a show at the MAK Center entitled TRESPASSING, Burden, together with TK Architecture realized the design as a featherweight structure assembled from T-slotted, bolt-together parts belonging to a Bosch aluminum structural framing system. The Bosch system recalls a lifesize Erector set, the material that Burden uses in his contemporary series of model bridges. Developed for rapid construction of automated assembly lines, test benches, and equipment enclosures, the Bosch system is not only relatively inexpensive compared to traditional building materials, it allows untrained builders working with a minimum of tools to erect projects quickly and easily. The floors and the sundeck are constructed out of ordinary two-by-fours.

In 2002, the project was realized at the LACE gallery where Burden erected the project horizontally so that it would fit into the gallery, propping it up to demonstrate that the project was not an avant-garde sculpture but rather a structural member, capable of withstanding bending forces. In June, 2003 the Small Skyscraper was erected in the Basel Art Fair. After ten days of being viewed by Swiss art lovers, the Small Skyscraper was disassembled and put into crates to await sale by the Gallery Krinzinger in Vienna.

Outside of its context, however, Small Skyscraper remains an art project, no matter how sophisticated its commentary. If realized on Burden&aposs property in Topanga Canyon, as both artist and architects still hope to do, Small Skyscraper will become a performative critique of Los Angeles&aposs culture of bureaucracy.

Perhaps, we imagine, after a confrontation with the authorities, Burden&aposs audacity might be accepted as his own business and, as our fantasy continues, we hear the sounds of construction in backyards citywide as hundreds, even thousands of small skyscrapers rise into the sky, turning the city into a latter day San Gimignano.

small skyscraper

 

Some more thoughts on this question of code.

I just spent a good part of my morning dealing with various kinds of bureaucratic nightmares: retrieving my American Express online id, dealing with insurance on a broken product (since broken again), inquiring about how to use my flexible spending account, getting refunds for improperly processed shipping labels produced by the postal service's junky website, and—when that failed—processing fraudulent transaction claims against the USPS. I think there were a few more things, but I've forgotten now.

Am I an extreme case? Perhaps. Maybe the advocates of post-criticism live in an age of smoothness and effortlessly navigate through the maze of bureaucracies that form key parts of the networks in network culture. I don't. For me, it's a constant and horrible battle that takes up a good part of my day. Code is often not fun. Code limits. Code restricts. But sometimes, maybe, code can be hacked as the following text about artist Chris Burden suggests. I originally wrote this for the 2003 Forum Annual from the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design.

Hacking a Small Skyscraper

In 1991, while planning a studio on his property, artist Chris Burden became frustrated by Los Angeles County building codes and, in response, sketched his "Small Skyscraper."

small skyscraper diagram

Small Skyscraper forms something of a reaction to the stalemate being reached in Southern California, and increasingly elsewhere, as forces such as NIMBYist Neighborhood Councils, environmental regulations, view preservation ordinances, historic preservation areas, draconian zoning codes, building review boards, restrictive covenants, and other governmental and non-governmental organizations create an intractable micro-bureaucracy of obstacles. This new ecology of red tape, rules, and regulations increasingly comes to shape our landscape. Individuals find themselves struggling not with nature but with the constraints put upon them by the "second nature" that contemporary society generates.

Burden envisioned Small Skyscraper as a means of exploiting a loophole in the Los Angeles County building code that excludes out-buildings less than 400 square feet in size and below 32 feet in height from any oversight or review by the building department. Small Skyscraper, then, followed the familiar mantra of the developer and built to the maximum permissible building envelope: stacking four 10 foot by 10 foot rooms on top of one another in a 32 foot high structure.

small skyscraper in basel

For a show at the MAK Center entitled TRESPASSING, Burden, together with TK Architecture realized the design as a featherweight structure assembled from T-slotted, bolt-together parts belonging to a Bosch aluminum structural framing system. The Bosch system recalls a lifesize Erector set, the material that Burden uses in his contemporary series of model bridges. Developed for rapid construction of automated assembly lines, test benches, and equipment enclosures, the Bosch system is not only relatively inexpensive compared to traditional building materials, it allows untrained builders working with a minimum of tools to erect projects quickly and easily. The floors and the sundeck are constructed out of ordinary two-by-fours.

In 2002, the project was realized at the LACE gallery where Burden erected the project horizontally so that it would fit into the gallery, propping it up to demonstrate that the project was not an avant-garde sculpture but rather a structural member, capable of withstanding bending forces. In June, 2003 the Small Skyscraper was erected in the Basel Art Fair. After ten days of being viewed by Swiss art lovers, the Small Skyscraper was disassembled and put into crates to await sale by the Gallery Krinzinger in Vienna.

Outside of its context, however, Small Skyscraper remains an art project, no matter how sophisticated its commentary. If realized on Burden&aposs property in Topanga Canyon, as both artist and architects still hope to do, Small Skyscraper will become a performative critique of Los Angeles&aposs culture of bureaucracy.

Perhaps, we imagine, after a confrontation with the authorities, Burden&aposs audacity might be accepted as his own business and, as our fantasy continues, we hear the sounds of construction in backyards citywide as hundreds, even thousands of small skyscrapers rise into the sky, turning the city into a latter day San Gimignano.

small skyscraper