“FULLHOUSE”

Architecture does far more than merely provide shelter. It actively mediates relationships between users, environments, and systems of values. In contrast to this potential, contemporary architecture is increasingly manufactured as a commodity, operating through transactional logic, which can be clearly observed in casinos and theme parks. 

As Henri Lefebvre argues in The Production of Space, space is no longer crafted primarily for lived experience but to materialize technological and financial usurpation. As ostentatious recognizability became the central design objective, architecture was streamlined into a standardized visual language that privileged branding over use, shifting the design process away from human experience and toward market legibility. 

Rem Koolhaas describes these spatial outcomes as Junkspace. These are the kinds of spaces most people encounter daily, including airports, shopping malls, transit hubs, large-scale commercial interiors, and other common public facilities. In Junkspace, he characterizes contemporary space as dispersed, centerless, and system-driven, organized through standardized modules rather than narrative or experiential systems of continuity. As these typologies proliferate, they replace human-scale sensitivity with homogenized spaces and reduce architectural significance.

Similarly, in Learning from Las Vegas, Robert Venturi identifies Las Vegas as a symbol of the commodification of architecture. The city operates primarily as an image, in which function and identity are communicated through signage, lighting, and decoration. As a result, Las Vegas can be consumed by floating through it, as meaning is attached to its architecture rather than to the functions embedded within it.

Drawing from the conditions outlined by Lefebvre, Venturi, and Koolhaas, contemporary architectural practice reveals increasing discrepancies between design ideology and built reality. As design strategies are shaped by commodification and the pursuit of trophy and monument-making, considerations for long-term sustainability, as an intrinsic feature of the urban landscape and its operations, are often neglected, leading to unintended consequences that range from functional failure to spatial alienation. While both residential and public architecture are affected by the phenomenon, casinos and amusement parks operate on an elevated level of dysfunctionality. 

This juxtaposition suggests that, unlike other architectural typologies, these spaces do not disguise their transactional logic. Their symbolic intent is direct and unapologetic, functioning entirely as programs of consumption. Rather than promising lifestyle, cultural, or social elevation, they operate through desire, absorbing wealth while producing pleasure, excitement, or guilt.  

Projects that stand as testimony to this argument can be found worldwide. Some have fallen into dilapidation, while others continue to operate through modification and adaptation. This project examines three selected residential artifacts to address the discrepancies between design intent and built reality. Each artifact reveals context-specific issues that enable close observation and broader reinterpretation. These are translated into two drawings per artifact, as follows:

1) 432 Park Avenue, a luxury condominium in Uptown Manhattan, maintains the slender form with an extreme 15:1 height-to-width ratio. The design’s aesthetics were achieved by employing a tube-in-tube structural system, in which both the core and the façade are load-bearing, while a specially formulated white concrete mix was used to produce the desired appearance. Over time, multiple live load factors have led to façade cracking, excessive sway on upper floors, and water leakage that has damaged interior spaces. 

2)161 Maiden Lane, a luxury condominium in Manhattan’s Financial District, occupies land created through 17th-century reclamation in Lower Manhattan. The site consists of layered fill, including construction debris, marsh deposits, pockets of glacial sand, and decomposed rock. Instead of the deep pile foundations used by neighboring towers, the building relies on a soil improvement method, in which material is added to stabilize the ground. As a result, uneven settlement caused the structure to lean approximately 3 inches to the north, reaching up to 8 inches at the top. Although the project topped out in 2018, the façade remains unfinished.

3)The Nakagin Capsule Tower, conceived as a mixed-use residential and office complex, stood as one of the last remaining icons of Japanese Metabolism before its demolition in 2022. Often described as “the most successful failure,” the project comprised two interconnected concrete cores supporting 140 prefabricated, self-contained capsules intended for mass production and periodic replacement. However, no new capsules were ever produced, and none of the originals were replaced. Designed for a 25-year renewal cycle, the capsules instead deteriorated due to long-term neglect, ultimately leading to the building’s demise.

By reconstructing these projects through the spectacle of casinos and theme parks, the project uses irony as a counter-ideological tool to reflect on the commercialization, gentrification, and homogenization of contemporary architecture.

Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space. 1974.

Venturi, Robert, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour. Learning from Las Vegas. 1972.

Koolhaas, Rem. “Junkspace.” 2002.