The studio began with the picking of a “client”. For me that meant trying to wrap my head around this site. I created the diagrams below in an attempt to define what was possible in terms of production and urbanity on the site. I chose to test the fit of an automobile manufacturer in response to the contemporaneous failure of the American auto industry and the myriad of proposals attempting to save it. Personal motor vehicles are not going anywhere, anytime soon, but exactly what that means for the future of cars is somewhat unclear. I wanted to pick a manufacturer that was aggressively reconceiving personal transport, it seems that is what will be required in the next century for the U.S. to remain relevant in this market. Aptera is an automotive start-up, soon to began production on a 300 mile-per-charge electric vehicle, a perfect manufacturer to incubate innovation. Shortly thereafter I came across this quote. _ _ _The connection made by Manovich, between these two modes of production in society, suggests that not only can cinema be reconceived as having both spatial and temporal montage as a productive means but so too can factory production, the assembly line, can be repositioned to against it’s own familiar “narrative” structure. As visual media has begun to depart from the familiar narrative forms –in video games, web-navigation, and other forms of nonlinear storytelling– it has taken on the characteristics of a database; a network of opportunities that the user can plug into and build connections, creating multiple independent narratives within one system. So here, on this site with this program, the question becomes, how can a factory become a database? A selectively open networked system that invites the spatial and temporal interjection of another entity to create new narratives of R&D._ _ _My analysis of existing factories revealed that the “assembly line” is actually many “lines”, there is a distributed flow of raw goods that are recompiled in the final stage of manufacturing as a finished automobile. After manipulating that flow of materials to invite factory-wide introspection, I then introduced another set of lines to represent the productive interests of the University. These alternate narrative streams move across, within, and in tandem to the central database of the car factory. These lines create new connections across existing factory functions, to invite disparate research disciplines to engage in new ways, with a new awareness. The factory and University become intertwined in an on-going state of parallel montage: spatial, temporal and apperceptive.





“The Plan” is seen here as a long term Critical Path Diagram onto which outside influences are over-layed and interjected. Aptera has it’s own development cycle in relation to a specific product but this cycle is reconceived as an essential stage in the incubation of a center of innovation that unites disparate interests towards a common goal over a 8 year period. This process results in a new build environment, represented here as a series of volumes created at critical points of development.
After Researching a number of existing car factory typologies I set to work diagraming a normative factory process in an attempt to define what elements could be manipulated towards the end of a more open-source innovation and internal apperception.A simple folding and stacking suggested a way to maintain the efficiency of production while introducing new ways of thinking with the process.



Here, the triangular plan is further broken down into separate sectors of production. The “assembly line” is actually many lines where different elements of the car are realized. This diagram introduces the university as an additional set of production/research “lines”. These lines are over-layed at critical junctures, creating opportunities for innovation and discovery along with the sharing of resources/facilitates. The University accesses the productive database of the Factory.

Following the very specific trajectories of this variety of production narratives, the architecture is built around the spine of innovation. The campus and factory become linked instead of at odds. The university runs often in parallel or as a temporary sheath to the factory with a periodic incisions the interior, resulting in the novel hybrid classroom/assembly line environment.

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