Written by: Sarah Shehab Salem
Edited & Published by: Mariham Magdy
Have you ever though that what we lack is the “Too much freedom” that chains us? Well, there’s one person that aligns to that but, rather put in a more firmly structured way. Socrates says:
“Too much freedom seems to change into nothing but too much slavery, both for private men and the city. …….I suppose- the greatest and the most savage slavery out of the extreme of freedom.”
-Plato’s Republic
Although, in that essence Socrates was referring to how democracy has actually robbed us of what freedom actually is. And the reason why this notion has resonated in the past 5 and half years of my life is because I studied Architecture as an undergrad. Out of the top five words that pop into anyone’s mind when “Architecture” is mentioned is slavery. “The change from an Architecture slave to a cooperate slave”, our professors said on our last day of my undergraduate program.
Why is slavery most likely associated to work and the corporate realm, because I personally believe that becoming a free man is through having that free mind. This whole thing took a dramatic shift, but it’s true to an extent. We dramatize being chained up in a long chain of organizational structures. To the relief of being a free unemployed architect I’ve decided I’ll start working and make a living, on the bright side nothing will be worse than the countless days of sleep deprivation. However, on my first day of work I was a assigned my “workstation” more of my work 1m by 1m space with absolutely no natural light entry to the space.
I tried to tell myself,” This is not Monday yoga class you can make it through without the natural light” But that was not the issue. The issue is the absence of individualism within each workstation. Yeah, sure you can put up a picture of you with a bunch of your family and friends but that won’t give you the spatial essence of belonging. I’ve never really acknowledged the preferences in the work environments until I went to university and work has become a pure reflection of who you are as a person. And because of that notion, the choice of the work environment has become also on the basis of my own preference as an individual.The five years in Archi-torture, weren’t as bad after all. The reason behind that is that no matter how harsh the work conditions were I’ve always managed to find that margin of belonging to the workplace.
For five years I’ve watched architects come and go through that long hallway of the department. Some come for quick greetings and goodbyes, others for services and facilities while others to claim their spot and work for as long as they’d endure before passing out. Personally, as an architect the studio environment was a place that I’d be in and kind of wait to be inspired. We all wait to be inspired in one way or the other, but surely not in vacuum. Inspiration is what you make out of yourself in the place and not the other way around, at least what ‘s how I personally view it. Because of that notion I am pushed to imprint myself in so many different ways in whichever place I work in. Having this idea that you have a semi-flexible space that you can physically mold in so many different ways to reflect a sense of territoriality and belonging within the space creates a community for the self that is open to the inspiration of many other on the same terrain.
I’ve always liked it next to the biggest window in the studio, not next to the plotters, I liked it corned in the studio. That says about me as individual. Wanting to be seen but not revealed when being hugged by the two walls of that corner I chose to skosh myself into. I’d have my work pinned to break the barriers of critic for any pass-byer to throw one a comment or two. A brave call for inspiration.
Having to portray myself in the workspace has given me the chance to claim presence in a way that pushes me to have to add more the physical arena, in a way. Have to pin up the work that’s usually scraps of sketches and drafting paper has normalized this idea of “work in progress”. Also, has soften the edges when it came to the concept of open critic from those younger and older. Where the more comments and feedback I’ve received the more the inspiration hit me. Then I’d say are you not at some point ashamed of those scraps of incomplete work, I say well I might be but the more critic I received the more my work has inspired people enough to engage in a cycle of thought, even if it were to before a split of a second.
But on other days I felt like, I want to scramble up my work and never have shed to light in anyway. I’ve had days if not semesters of wanting a room on my own where no one can possibly see me or my work. Days, when I was the hi and bye person budging in and out of the department for the necessity and availability of the resource whether printing or using durable PCs. In the studio environment back in school the individual had the margin of space to create, find and belong to a mirror of themselves in a spatial means
I came to realize that work environments do add up to productivity in a relative sense, It’s a pure mirroring of each and every single individual regardless of the nature of the work. That stands valid in a way that the actual nature of the work does not primarily dictate the work environment preferences. The connections of who we are as individual to the place in correspondence to the work being carried out is the prime indicator of the work environment dynamic. It wasn’t so bad after all.