In the early months of a new decade, emerging
constellations of signs and signifiers point to the
hopes and fears of a new age. The nascent vectors of
networked, digital technology in the early part of the
21 st century have, at the start of the 2020s, become
less of a novelty and more the central starting point
for any serious appraisal of our cultural and economic
moment. So, too, in spatial design, do we see the
prevailing orthodoxy of post-industrialism informed
by a reverie for 20th-century mechanized manual labour
(cavernous warehouse spaces decorated with exposed
pipework and rusting patinas of metal) give way to an
aesthetic shaped instead by techno-scientific synthesis
and automation.
Increasingly complex and global information
flows accelerate and transform the tools
and procedures by which we manufacture
goods and build infrastructure. Spatial
designers seek a new language to reflect these
changes. Determined not to look backwards,
Synthesphere grounds its references in
ultra-contemporary modes of research and
production typified by the Fourth Industrial
Revolution.Each space features an exaltation to the power of
computation and data. Occasionally symbols flicker
on screens, giving us a glimpse into the immense
complexity and scale of data. Brushed metal scaffolding
structured purposefully to support display racks and
units shimmer with a delicate, molten liquidity, as if
you are moving through the inner workings of a circuit
board or server rack. Graded explorations of pastel
ombrés and angled, metallic mirroring augment the
eye’s perception of distance and boundary, illuminating
the idea, if not the reality, of an infinitely expanding
synthetic or digital territory. Even if we are reminded
of the incomprehensibly vast plane of technology, the
visitor is never permitted to entirely escape into this
fantasy. Exposed folded tubing shaped like cooling
elements, gently sliding pistons and tangled wiring
embeds the ‘hard’ mechanics of the visitor’s ‘soft’,
phenomenal experience.
Synthesphere cultivates a hierarchy
structured by technical expertise. Clusters of
neatly arranged test tubes and conical flasks
allude to the high level of technical savoir-
faire and innovation. Stark strip lighting,
off-white cleanliness and bright yellow hazard
signs – as in a top-secret laboratory – imbue
the spaces with a forensic intensity that
awakens the visitor’s attention. Products
are often hermetically sealed in observation
chambers, sunken in frothy deep blue liquids
or suspended in giant test tubes. Inside
these vessels, products are worked on by
slick pressure pumps and enigmatic, silky
gases. These mechanical assemblages allude
to the accelerating adoption of automated
production, while the retail products they
cradle appear as precious and quarantined,
classified artefacts. Surveillance cameras,
vault doors and PVC strip curtains seem
installed to monitor access or even to regulate
contamination.
Synthesphere makes sense imagined as an ‘auto-
sophisticating’ data farm. Its products – embryonic
source code, caches of information, cryptographic
instruments – are wielded as the intangible, immaterial
means of production and innovation in the Fourth
Industrial Revolution. A generally non-benevolent,
even hostile environment is engendered to defend
intellectual property and secure the machinic
expansion of automated, networked technology.
Isolate, re-create, replicate.•
axis-mundi.coPAGE 85 Nike House of Innovation by
Coordination Asia in Shanghai, China.
OPPOSITE SKP-S by Gentle Monster in
Beijing, China. See more on page 114.
Look Book 87