Machinarium

Abstract

Machinarium is an exploration of industrial bio-mechanical hybridity as part of the 21st Century paradigm. The dissertation investigates the potential of industry as urban catalyst - a mechanism with which to regenerate urban environments and re-integrate socio-ecological systems. In an attempt to redefine modern concepts of waste and mitigate the flood of pollution emanating from 20th century industrialisation, the investigation is contextually based in an ‘urban wasteland’ - which is re-programmed as part of a new industrial ecology. The dissertation therefore blurs present-day distinctions between ‘social’, ‘productive’ and ‘natural’ space, while at the same time placing focus on the global cultural dependence on waste. If humankind is to survive the predicted crises of the our time, a 21st-century approach to design must shift the modern understanding of architecture as ‘machines for living in’ towards that of architecture as living machines. Machinarium alludes to new ways of architectural place-making in a rapidly changing world.