on january 11th, 2008, the work.group developed a schema for a dwelling, for a single man, working as a Records Department clerk.
the following materials were produced to represent the design:
site
contemporary reference
thanks to privacy international
make sure to provide a spot for winston to write.
vignette
vignette
plans
section
the program is based on the original 5 houses program, available here, with the addition of the fascio’s dangerous supplement:
i’m going to throw this one out there, smith has to be visible from the outside at all times whilst inside the casa, yet there must be moments where he can discreetly hide away his ‘writing’ whilst moving through the house, leaning back, etc. i presume he doesn’t post anonymously on diaryland using proxy servers.
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looking for a site that is somewhat urban and isolated, where winston could spend his whole live without ever having to venture very far from his home to find all he needs, but is also close enough to the frontier to put the inhabitants under threat of invasion.
houston and detroit are larger cities closer to the enemy, but they are not very isolated. someplace like denver is more isolated, but i don’t believe they would receive hits many home made rockets launched from mexico.
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i havent really spent any time in tuscon or corpus. is that a prereq? did you refuse to work on house one because you hadnt been to downey?
what about del rio?
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did you refuse to work on house one
how dare you, sir!
‘at this point i’m happier just working on construction drawings on my own…is there something else you can do?’ -jt
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yes i was born there. i have been to galveston, and there is a fresh glen campbell song about it.
we could do waco? that is the 3rd tier texas city if have been to most recently.
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can a home made rocket fired from nuevo laredo reach waco? i don’t guess it matters what the site is, it certainly didn’t on house one, or anything since pgon (sort of).
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i was trying to think of a place that fit w/ the narrative of the source material. winston is confined in an isolated city, where the party doesn’t want him to see what is outside.
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p.s. the source material to which i am referring is a book, 1984 (if you please, Nineteen Eighty-Four)
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how is tuscon more isolated than anything else? if you are really into that idea then the barrier island part of corpus might be more believable as isolated?
having read the book several times i deduced that the isolation had less to do with geography and architecture than psychological control, which i think exists anywhere in the united states today. kids arent even allowed to play in the front yard of the deepest cul-de-sac anymore! people (like me) don’t want to walk around downtown at night for fear of getting jacked by hoods. so i think any city might fit.
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the control was psychological, natch, but they still had to monitor winston physically and resort to violence. i thought that one of the tools bb used to instill fear in the proles was the isolation they had felt being in a far flung area of oceania that was close enough to the enemy to always be under bombardment. the inhabitants of london aren’t really sure what is going on outside their city; some place like san diego or houston would allow people to take a short drive and realize that none of the shit bb says is true.
didn’t i say there are no isolated u.s. cities near the frontier? i suppose we could pick some place like lincoln, ne, and assume the rocket attacks are being fired by winston’s own gov’t, which i believe is a possibility in the text.
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i absolutely think they were firing rockets at themselves. lincoln was pretty isolated. i always fancy salina.
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i guess we should pick somewhere one of us has been, i don’t know why; i’ve never been to birnbeck and we won that one. remember that time i tried to kill myself because a girl in vermillion wouldn’t go out with me?
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are you suggesting branson? have you not been to lincoln?
i remember reading about the vermillion episode; i assumed it was hyperbolic.
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i have been to lincoln; i don’t have much insight regarding it, though. i guess we can stay in tejas (waco?), everyone there is half lunatic as it is.
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have you been to waco? its about 250 miles from the border. doesnt seem plausible. what about san anton’.
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ffs, why not just use austin? grishnackh only knows how much material you must have on that place.
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funny, i said that in my email before i read this post.
fine with me, as long as it is near quack’s so winston can get vegan peanut butter cups and eat dinner at mother’s.
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fair enough. do you want some guidance on a site in austin? should it be urban, gritty, bucolic, what?
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i would imagine something with built with modernist promise, but everything is a bit run down and broken – maybe a place you would find alain’s bldg in clichy, that ft worth water fountain where people die, or the chase scenes ‘the third man’,
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matt also said via email:
this is the first place that came to mind. It’s close to town, west side, has the modernist “hill”, it’s already a ruin, and its context includes a castle. Seems pretty rich to me.
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well, I figured you didn’t want a picture of tubgirl, so this will have to do, unless the site doesn’t meet your requirements. Do you want more or less urban, more or less context, more or less topography?
perhaps you’d prefer something like this: Ravine covered in interstates and bound by disconnected neighborhoods. The charles moor house neighbors the north west corner?
or this:
Old airport. Being redeveloped by some stupid new urbanist jerkoffs
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get to work! pick a site? i will be in austin in about 10 days, i maybe can roll by before matt and i blast quacks and mothers.
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dix! i guess the site that is by the highway; it looks like there are some existing houses there; i don’t reckon the airport would work unless we are going to ‘design’ some tower blocks. i can’t believe winston smith is getting his own house!
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do you have an FTP dump? I’ve got some cad/rhino/photos of the highway site.
the airport is currently replatted for homes, feels like a movie set, or a chunk of LA, without the porno (actually, it probably has porno) without the multiple layers of society. This is an extremely homogeneous place. Mostly middle to upper middle class white folks, wearing different a different smile for their different style.
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hires aerial stitch, siteplan, and 1 GB of photos are up. If you find any interesting, and want to know where they are located, post up and I’ll try to orient you. If you want something specific, or reshot, I’ll see what I can do.
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at ashley’s request the site search is shifting to the north end of town near lamar/183 intersection. here are a couple of my experiences from this neighborhood:
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i don’t know; i never heard of it.
i am looking at the lot on at 55th and bennett; i tried to add the text to the pin, but i think you have to be logged in to hotmail or something stupid to see pin:
looks like one large parcel that has not been divided into lots. house two lot would be similar dimensions of surrounding homes.
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oh, cool, you can just walk down to 53 1/2 street and take a right onto airport blvd and you are at kick butt coffee. it sounds like a charming place!
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yeah, they had rubber throwing-stars where for sale where you would normally find vegan oat cakes…
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hmm, well you can check them all out on your day off.
then we will see about looking for sites north of highland mall.
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not too shabby – it looks like colony square.
what is that piece to the north east, a xian scientist church?
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Your first link at 55 and bennet is where we are buying a house, 55 and 1/2 and bennet to be precise. it’s the house just north of the pin, on the corner. That unsubdivided lot you identified is a nature preserve.
There is some good stuff up there, it’s a pretty great part of town. I haven’t been to kick butt coffee yet.
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…There is some good stuff up there, it’s a pretty great part of town…..
hmmm, is that part of the narrative?
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i will cruise up there after my meetings on tuesday. maybe winston can live next door to the leaches.
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worker john’s photos from last night’s site visit are available here.
a scan of julia’s shopping list for winston is forthcoming. no victory gin?!
the site is pretty non-descript. it is on a corner which is good for paranoia. google street-view has the ‘architect house’ next door under construction. observe.
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ok, i was used to that bird’s eye view from bing, and i believe the satellite pic showed different houses..
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so, are we replacing the architect’s house? b/c that corner lot looks larger than the rest. the architect’s house is now on the corner lot?
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i think that when that corner house was torn down its lot was subdivided. the architect’s house took the south half leaving the other half for mister smith.
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did you take your hodometer to the site, or should we just assume the dimensions to be about 500′x1000′?
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i would say your scale is way off. looking at the gmap i would say the old corner house was close to 100×150, so the new lots are probably 50×150. that sounds similar to house one.
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the new lots are probably 50×150
cool, i guess we are done with that. now you just draw the floor plans while i make a house three forum?
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12h57m53
20.Dec.2009