Socioplastics 11808 A Section of Territory Is a Way of Seeing
Architectural inquiry moves between a room, a building, a city and the larger systems that shape them. ScalarArchitecture treats each change of scale as an interpretive choice with practical effects. A coastal pumping station may be examined as a building, a drainage connection, a working environment or a point within regional water governance. Each frame brings some relations into focus and guides different forms of action. Geoff Manaugh explores buildings and urban systems through their material and technological possibilities. Margaret Rodman’s account of multilocality shows how a place can hold different positions and meanings for people who encounter it. Together, their work supports a study of scale that attends to both physical relations and lived experience. A single map can locate the station; further accounts can show how residents, engineers and seasonal workers depend on it in different ways. A project dossier could represent one site through several scales without merging them into a single master diagram. Each drawing would state its extent, source and intended use, then identify relations that become visible at that scale. Interviews and site observations could connect technical infrastructure with daily routes and local knowledge. The dossier would also record which decisions follow from each representation and whose expertise informs them. ScalarArchitecture makes scale available for scrutiny as part of the design process. It enables architects and researchers to move between spatial frames while keeping their distinct evidence in view. A useful section of territory shows both the object under study and the relations through which it becomes meaningful to different observers. Scale therefore becomes part of the evidence: each representation states its reach, its omissions and the decisions it is equipped to inform.
REFERENCES
Manaugh, G. (2016) A Burglar’s Guide to the City. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Rodman, M.C. (1992) ‘Empowering Place: Multilocality and Multivocality’, American Anthropologist, 94(3), pp. 640–656.
CITE AS
Lloveras, A. (2026) Socioplastics, LAPIEZA-LAB, Madrid.
https://antolloveras.blogspot.com/p/socioplastics-project-index.html