SUBJECT

Nich Srnicek focuses in this book on how new business models are transforming our society. He argues platforms are usually identified as political or cultural actors and very rarely discussed as economic ones, but they are actually capitalist businesses within a capitalist system.

So what do they look like when we start thinking about them in economic terms?

They are usually identified within the tech sector. But in an overall level they are quite small.

They are also thought to be part of a sharing economy but the “sharing economy” they postulate is about money, is the selling of what one does not need. And are also considered gig economy, but it is rather a task-oriented economy generating hyperprecarious employment

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BOOK SUMMARY

 That’s why the definition he comes with is PLATFORM CAPITALISM,

a new business model that acts as the same time as an intermediary and as an infrastructure.

Analyzing further the model, he sets some basic aspects, which are: the network effect, cross subsidisation and designed core-architecture.

 

And distinguishes different types: advertising platforms (such as google and facebook), cloud platforms, industrial platforms, product platforms and lean platforms which own as little as possible, and profitability comes from outsourcing costs and venture capital welfare.

Their possible futures are reduced to achieving monopoly.

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REAL CONTEXT

Ethnology researches are based on the individual as the beginning of the social; thus defined as the society of which he is an expression... Contemporary society is shaped by its economy. But nowadays’ capitalism platforms are intrinsically non-profitable and exploitation apparatuses. So, are we slaves of the model we are creating? Are we slaves of the information we are producing?

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THEORETICAL REFERENCES

Many people believe that the relentless advance of science and technology in recent decades has endangered privacy and brought us to the very brink of the Orwellian nightmare or Huxley vision. There is an uncertainty about whether technological innovation will increase or reduce social welfare.

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So where are we heading to?

All the amount of data and access to technology has reduced the size of the world. There is now an Excess of time, space, ego, and events. Anonymity in a world of consumption:  the “average man” is fabricated, “do as the others to be yourself".

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IMPACT

The space of the city creates neither identity, nor relations, only solitude and similitude.

Alone, but one of many.

We need to escape.

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VISION

Nevertheless, the hope is that it is in that though moments when critic and utopic visions arise.

Architecture has the power to envision another world is possible, and only then it can become

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DEBATE

The debate is formulated as “how do we maintain the benefits of the new business models without letting them take control of our identity?"

The Contemporary need of constant responsiveness, constant refreshment... is killing creativity and individuality.

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POSITION

As a response, my position is: awareness + reflection and change.

The first step is to raise a call for a need of caution so that we can deeper reflect about where are we leading to and finally embrace the challenge of designing for human in an ever-changing and increasingly complicated world embedded in a multiplicity of meanings.

Marc Augé’s definition of supermodernity and non-places suits well the description of the cities in which we live, while Bernard Tschumi’s Fiction, Causality provides non-conventional reactions.

 

CASE STUDIES

If there was an existing universal solution, it would be the one being applied, but instead we can find different approaches responding to particular situations or individuals.

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IMMEDIATE RESPONSE

The first one is a negative yet possible proposal.

Grundrisse, a service company that provides each worker a place to live and work, rented for a symbolic price. There, inhabiting and working are completely merged.

It is a mean of exploitation as well as of social control. It provides the illusion of preventing precarization, keeping the workers always busy for different companies.

 

STEP BACKWARDS

But do we really want to live that way? Once we are aware of the present situation , we can take a step backwards.

What is the role of the people in making the places livable?

We can go through real examples such as Kowloon Walled city, in Hong Kong, or Torre David, in Caracas.

Although they cannot be literally considered self-constructed, they acquired a kind of autonomy. A community managed to create a richly varied city as an “organic megastructure” continually responsive fulfilling every need yet providing also warmth and intimacy.

How do people appropriate the spaces when the architect is no longer present?

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ESSENTIALS

What’s space after all?

Is it real, just because we think it is?

Space is essentially a mental construct, the medium of our relationships with the world and everything in it. Human needs are actually being shaped to satisfy designed space How to change this?

Space is a void, an emptiness which people have a need to fill with the content of their own presence.

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REACTIONS

The responses, as mentioned before, do not aspire to be a solution or an absolute probable scenario, but a range of aproximations.

1. The unending Square, from Caleb Ong, takes the shifting work-life paradigm and makes it more livable. Coworking as a community encouraging encounters and dynamic interaction.

 

1. In a smaller scale we find the EIP House. The ecology lies on providing a  solution consuming less resources and taking advantage of the most precious space each day. A home of multiple solutions.

 

1. And finally small interventions such as All(zone) LightHouse a proposal of small temporary homes intended to be set up inside unfinished high-rise buildings or Homed by FramLab which proposes making use of the “vertical lots” to create temporary shelters for the homeless.

Another kind of approach that deals also with land and ownership, is the secret studio under a bridge by Fernando Abellanas, who makes use of the concrete infrastructure to form the roof and walls for his studio.

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CONCLUSION

The real challenge is: how to prepare for a future we do not even know?

Being aware of the scenario we face, we can be critical on how to make the most of it.

We cannot be dominated by the new business models but rather dominant in terms of using the new advanced tools in order to achieve a networked society with new intelligent responses to issues of civic space. Generating a sense of community where everybody feels part of.

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Space as an experience where people are participative and not passive in its use and design.

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Real life as the stages where we can act our own desires.

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