StereoTypes

StereoTypes imagines new frontiers in military urbanism.

AGENCY presents STEREOTYPES, an exhibit of three near-future urban scenarios which extrapolate the contemporary collapse of military and domestic space to imagine new potentials and liabilities.

Rapid urbanization has brought about a collapsing ‘securocratic’ territory, in which military training initiatives have increasingly exploited the physical form and architectural typologies of the developing global city. The resulting urban facsimile is often imprecise and oversimplified, effectively criminalizing the real-world informal settlements it represents, perpetuating racially and politically charged tropes of colonialist development and the global military security apparatus.

STEREOTYPES is a design investigation into the life and form of these emerging territories. AGENCY imagines new models of ‘securocratic timeshares’, in which civilian and military actors are mutually responsible for the design and developmental logic of a shared city. Training scenarios are grafted onto public space and building code, fostering a type of counter-code in which conditions enabling security challenges are incentivized. Evacuation and occupation are ingrained in the complicit urban fabric.

STEREOTYPES is on display in the Radical Urbanism exhibit at the Hong Kong / Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, from December 4, 2015 through February 28, 2016. Kripa and Mueller served as curatorial advisers for the exhibit, in addition to contributing the AGENCY installation.

StereoTypes

StereoTypes

StereoTypes | Graveyard

StereoTypes | Graveyard

StereoTypes | Dump

StereoTypes | Dump

StereoTypes | Camp

StereoTypes | Camp

StereoTypes | Installation

StereoTypes | Installation