The Big Box represents the final outcome of a Darwinian struggle for survival between building types, amidst the increasing pressures of economic optimization of building and development. Relentless repetition of elements in surfaces, endless flexibility in use through wide-span structures, contiguous floor spaces succeed in describing a building that, only 35 years ago, was described as the ultimate vessel for personal emancipation through architecture - whether such a description was cynical in the pencil of Andrea Branzi for the Continuous Monument., or with conviction, as in the drawings of Cedric Price for Potteries Thinkbelt. THe lack of architectural expression on the outside, yes the deliberate sefl-imposed muteness of the designers, was to correspond inversely with a newly gained sense of personal freedom in form-giving in the indeterminate interiors of the big box. Today, we are witnessing how market optimization has realized this vanguard reflection, ruthlessly and relentlessly, into a system of tarmacs and surfaces almost covering the land between NYC and DC.

In this workshop, we will analyze the means and logics of the supply chain the feeds the big box, as well as the implications on its form, design and outlook. The goal is to understand how, using the lenses of culture, we can begin conceiving of the box as an element of high art (Ed Ruscha's box) and/or low art (appropriating the box for everyday urbanism). Ultimately, the box will be construed as just one element in a larger supply chain that starts at the ports of North America. A string of infrastructural artifacts connects these ports to your local store. THe big box is one crucial pivot-element in this chain. THe box is not independent, it is a piece of transportation infrastructure, at least as much as it is a building. To understand the reduction of architecture to infrastructure is the first step in the re-design of our country that our generation is to undertake.

The workshop will cut across fields, combining architectural design with culture and art theory, and with urbanism, planning, landscape.

We will cap at 10 participants.