Landscapes of co-option: soft power and the environmental turn in corporate America

By Dan Handel

If soft power, which emerged as a new paradigm of world politics at the closing of the cold war, can be considered as an attempt to affect political outcomes through a careful design of environments, then certain threads in architectural thinking, namely those relating to environmental manipulation, can be seen as early articulations of similar ideas on different scales of operation. The 1971 Weyerhaeuser headquarters, designed by SOM and Sasaki, is scrutinized as a radical materialization of such concepts, in which every aspect, from the microscopic to the atmospheric, was controlled and mediated through a soft, precise and totalizing environment.

BRACKET [goes soft]

iMobile

iMobile

By A Jennifer Siegal Company
ShapeShift

ShapeShift

By Manuel Kretzer, Edyta Augustynowicz, Sofia Georgakopulou, Dino Rossi, Stefanie Sixt
Anticipatory Architecture: Reyner Banham and Technological Futurism in Postwar and Contempoary Desig

Anticipatory Architecture: Reyner Banham and Technological Futurism in Postwar and Contempoary Desig

By Chris Perry
City Tickets

City Tickets

By Mayo Nissen
Chicago Institute of Land Generation

Chicago Institute of Land Generation

By Stewart Hicks, Allison Newmeyer
The Bladders

The Bladders

By Jonathan Walker
Weather Station

Weather Station

By Anca Matyiku
Dredge Locked

Dredge Locked

By Alex Yuen
GROUNDING: Landslide Mitigation Housing

GROUNDING: Landslide Mitigation Housing

By Jared Winchester, Viktor Ramos
Buoyant Light

Buoyant Light

By Claire Lubell, Virginia Fernandez
ESP // Estuary Services Pipeline

ESP // Estuary Services Pipeline

By Bionic- Marcel Wilson
Of Pop and Prostheses: Vienna 1965-72

Of Pop and Prostheses: Vienna 1965-72

By Jon Cummings
Operation "Hello Eden"

Operation "Hello Eden"

By Fionn Byrne
SWAMP THING

SWAMP THING

By Alex Chew, Max Kuo, Danielle Wagner
Aqua_Dermis: A Proposal for Climate Adaptive Comfort

Aqua_Dermis: A Proposal for Climate Adaptive Comfort

By Mariela De Felix
Arctic Opening

Arctic Opening

By Fabric | Ch - Office For Architecture, Interaction & Research
SOFT HOUSE

SOFT HOUSE

By KVA MATx, MIT SOFT CITIES Research, Jan Knippers/ King Advanced Engineering, ILEK Stuttgart, Buro Happold And A Consortium Of European Building Industry Partners
Scaffolding City; Architectural Utopia of the Future Past

Scaffolding City; Architectural Utopia of the Future Past

By Edward Dodington
The Soft Energy Controversy

The Soft Energy Controversy

By Rania Ghosn
SURVEILLER ET DIVERTIR _ Discipline and entertain

SURVEILLER ET DIVERTIR _ Discipline and entertain

By Pietro Pezzani
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