2014 Traveling Fellowship for Architecture, Design, and Urban Design
Finding Common Ground in the Open Plan

This research proposal understands the open plan as a common ground between different architectural paradigms. Several antithetical modes of architectural practice have all found their apotheoses in massive open-plan structures (generic speculative offices, utopian infinite floor planes, convention halls, stadiums, exhibition spaces, plazas, department stores, airports, factories, etc.). There is a paradox here: the most massive buildings are often the least specific. The rise of the indeterminate, flexible plan has, in many ways, reduced or transformed the role of the architect. Many of the duties once carried out by architects have been ceded to other domains, and many of the architectural elements that once comprised the floor plan have been replaced by impermanent devices. The proliferation of the open plan raises questions regarding the relevance of architectural specificity in today’s cultures and economies. Is the static medium of architecture trusted to accommodate constantly changing conditions? This research proposal seeks to unpack the open plan and to understand the factors that have brought about open and indeterminate architecture. The project will attempt to leverage the open plan’s capacity to bridge between traditionally separate modes of architectural production and to cope with a constantly fluctuating present.

Despite the convergent evolution of open-plan characteristics, different building types retain different functions. I am proposing to study a diverse set of precedents from a wide array of building types, cultures of building construction, time periods, and geographic locations. The travel-based research will provide an opportunity to study the role of the urban context in shaping structural systems and modes of occupation, as well as the spatial and programmatic workings of the buildings. The ubiquitous nature of the open plan is reflected in the seemingly schizophrenic list of architectural precedents. This travel itinerary will focus on the most potent instantiations of the open plan. Therefore, in addition to canonical master works, the proposal also emphasizes the importance of generic and seemingly banal buildings.

The widespread diffusion of open-plan buildings offers a common ground for study: a shared language between different paradigms of architectural practice. The open plan will be treated as a common thread and a fixed point to measure a diverse set of architectural conditions. This research project will explore the open plan’s ability to reconcile the different, and potentially antagonistic, cultures of building construction. The proposal positions the open plan as a conciliatory device that can dissolve the barriers that have traditionally divided commercial practice from other modes of practice.

Analytical Frameworks

I aim to study social, cultural, and technological conditions through the lens of the architectural device known as the open plan. This project categorizes the device into three categories that represent three different types of use. The categories are not mutually exclusive designations, but rather overlapping analytical frameworks. The project seeks to establish common ground between them.

Commercial Flexibility

This type of open floor plan is measured in gross floor area. The commercially flexible open plan suppresses architectural specificity, and it aspires to become a neutral backdrop for an infinite number of possible activities. When a building’s primary program is the production of rents, architectural specificity becomes a financial risk. A commercially viable building must remain flexible by adapting itself to changing cultures, evolving technologies, and fluctuating markets. Because a high level of specificity makes a building more prone to market obsolescence, commercially motivated buildings tend to be generic. In the twenty-first century, we witnessed the office floor double in its depth and thickness, producing the “deep plan.” This larger floor could accommodate an optimal number of future scenarios while committing to none of them. Commercial flexibility might be interpreted as the mitigation of architecturally induced obsolescence.

Symbolic Collectivity

The open plan operates on a symbolic register and unifies its occupants within a singular space. Because the open plan is evacuated of architectural and structural elements, it does not prescribe a specific orientation or directionality. The ubiquitous and seamless floor plan erases the distinctions between the architecture’s constituent parts, as well as between the potentially diverse set of occupants. The innate lack of hierarchy may be understood as a representation of a unified, collective group. It is not a neutral background, but rather a frame that establishes sameness.

Rubric for Production

The open floor plan is an instrumental device in both creative and industrial production. In industrial building types, the open space is scaled directly to the dimensional requirements of the production apparatuses within. The open plan, as a rubric for production, often banks on our negligence of the floor’s agency. The floor appears neutral. Because of this, the open plan is used as a kind of “watercooler” space that covertly induces desirable interactions and promotes collaborations in spaces of creative production. This paradoxical attempt to choreograph “happy accidents” within an indeterminate space leverages both the spatial flexibility and the unified appearance of the open plan. This framework is neither a neutral backdrop nor a symbolic representation. Rather, it is a gridded Cartesian surface upon which activities are scripted and performance levels are graphed.

China and Japan

France, Germany, and the United Kingdom

United States