Theory of Surveillance: The PANOPTICON

The PANOPTICON was proposed as a model prison by Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), a Utilitarian philosopher and theorist of British legal reform.

The Panopticon ("all-seeing") functioned as a round-the-clock surveillance machine. Its design ensured that no prisoner could ever see the 'inspector' who conducted surveillance from the privileged central location within the radial configuration. The prisoner could never know when he was being surveilled -- mental uncertainty that in itself would prove to be a crucial instrument of discipline.

"Obviously i'm not mad keen on the idea of prison as a whole but this particular type just seems cruel and unusual. From an architectural and conceptual view it's pretty interesting. But from a human point of view it's brutally efficient, paranoia-inducing and horribly Orwellian. Thankfully it seems the idea hasn't really caught on and with the advent of CCTV it's easier to keep tabs on inmates in less creepy ways. Wikipedia has a list of prisons which are said to be 'influenced' by Bentham's original concept but the closest to it in actuality is the Presidio Modelo in Cuba which is now abandoned."

---Hashed and Salted

Tallinn Town Hall - BIG

Tallinn Town Hall - BIG - Diagram

 

TimeTable

Scheme

In the audit of the 939 projects, 203.18 billion Yuan of total planned investment, 63 projects, 26 construction companies, 4 survey and design departments and 8 supervision departments have the problems of management non-compliance and survey and design not-in-place to varying degrees.

"From the audit findings, the phenomenon of some department’s violations excessive construction of buildings is very obvious. Among these, the outside wall of SanTai County’s 2011 new government building, is beyond the standard use of hollow tempered glass curtain wall decoration, for an area of 1993.84 square meters. A single office has the space area of 66 square meters which exceeds 6.3 times of the 9 square meters standard for a county organ."

---------------------------

The site I chose is the rebuilding county of WenChuan, after 2008 earthquake, in SiChuan Province, China.

After reading the news released from the audit department, I was ashamed on what the government did in the rebuilding period. It is really urgent for us to build a practical government department, a town hall, which can be supervised by the citizens. It is necessary to build a place for the survivors to assemble their power and give them a new community space for love finding. The internal town hall should be viewable from the outside and the ground floor level should be open to the public as an accessible community center. Also there will be a central block (space) that can serve people like a café or a teahouse. 

The other function of the town hall is to collect and store earthquake energy, and also give a safe refuge for people to live during the earthquake. The energy released in the Wenchuan earthquake (7.9 degree) is equal to the energy of the explosion of 4 million Hiroshima atomic bombs. This will benefit the society so much if this technology can be achieved. Of course, the scale of the town hall will be much bigger than the one in the second assignment.

Satellite captures between after the earthquake and after the rebuilding

Chief Judge Information

Riken Yamamoto，born in 1945, is a very active architect in Japan and the international architectural arena in the last decade. He is known by stressing that the design principles of using high-tech construction materials, focusing on the organic combination of the building and the environment, and architectural space affecting people's behavior.

Yusuhara Town office

Competition Selection Sheet of Top Five

Assignment 2: Town Hall in a Regional Environment

MediaFire Link