Reimagining labour, bureaucracy and the economics of practice amidst the neoliberal turn.

The still-unfolding economic collapse of the late aughts has rendered the impasse within architectural patronage more apparent. In late capitalism, crisis and conflict are generalized conditions deemed necessary for the creation of new markets and architecture is contingent upon capitalism’s fluctuating processes of expansion and ephemeralization. Yet rather than acquiesce to the design of market commodities, what if architecture realized its own crisis-making potential? How can designers who are invested in restructuring prevailing market forces organize themselves? How might re-scripting the protocols of practice produce alternative aesthetic values, arrangements of resources and constituencies? If we could design a new relationship between architecture and commissioning institutions, what would it look like?