Against Anxious Spaces: Disrupting the Commodification of Architecture

Architecture aims to improve life on numerous levels and design the best possible future for people and society. However, this effort often is challenged when architecture is instead deployed to service economic activities. The burgeoning spaces of transit and commerce, including shopping malls, are examples of the commodification of architecture. Within burgeoning spaces, users are passive, often disoriented and constrained to stay in a state of perpetual consumption. The anxiousness of the 21st century is reflected in these spaces where people's interests beyond their role as consumers are not considered. This thesis aims to decommodify the burgeoning spaces. It deploys evidence-based research and analytical studies to analyze the effects of the commodification of architecture on users' behaviours and interactions with the built environment. By deploying the disprogramming and the social condenser theories, the design aims to disrupt the spatial qualities of commodification. The Eaton Centre and its surroundings is the location of a speculative design project which aims to break the commodification of architecture by contaminating its main circulation spaces with active social and cultural (non-commodified) programs.