Lexicon

Abject
Accretion
Actant
Aeration
Aerobic
Algae-boosted
Animal
Anthropomorphism
Anti-Continuous Construction
Apocalypse
Aquaculture
Aquanaut
Ark
Artificial Intelligence
Autopoiesis
Assemblages
Asymmetry
Atrophy
Attraction
Autarchy
Automata
Automation
Autosymbiosis
Bambassador
Bathyscaphe
Bioconurbation
Biomedia
Bionics
Biosphere
Biotechnique
By-product
Capacity
Actant
Coisolation
Composting
Conservative Surgery
Consumer Envelope
Consumption
Continuous Construction
Conurbation
Correalism
Cultural_Memory
Cybernetics
Cybertecture
Cyborg
Dispositif
Diving Saucer
Dross
Earthship
Ecocatastrophe
Effluvium
Egosphere
End-use
Entanglement
Eutopia
Feedback
Foam
Folk
Gadget
Garbage House
Green Cyborg
Heuristic
Hoard
Holism
Homogenization of Desire
Hostile
Human Affect
Hybridized Folk
Hydroponic
Hyper-Materialism
Information Economy
Inner Space
Interama
Intra-Uterine
Maque
Megalopolis
Min-use
Mobility
Monorail
Multi-Hinge
Non-Design
Oceanaut
Oppositional Consciousness
Organic
Ouroboros
Panarchy
Parasite
Perceived Continuation
Permanence
Place
Prototype
Post-Animal
Reclamation
RI: Data Farms
RI: Garbage and Animals
RI:Shipbreaking
RI: Toxic Sublime
Sampling
Scale
Sensing Structure
Simulacrum
Simulation
Soft Energy
Spaceship Earth
Submersible
Superwindow
Symbiosis
Synthetic Environment
Technocratic
Technological Heredity
Technological Sublime
Telechirics
The Sublime
Thermal Panel
Actant
Thing-Power
Thinking Machines
Tool
Toxic Withdrawal
Turbulence
UV-Transparent Film
Vibrant Matter
Waste
Work

Thing Power

A term used to describe the alluring power that an object can have on someone, a compelling force that goes beyond utilitarian or practical considerations. In "Powers of the Hoard", for example, Bennet explores 3 possible reasons for why things can have such an effect on people.1 Slowness, or the awe felt for some objects that are capable of withstanding the passing of time, a sentiment that can be tied to the fear of mortality. There is contagion/porosity, or the sponge like capacity of an object capable of absorbing someone's imprint until the boundaries between it and the consumer's body blur. Lastly, there's inorganic sympathy, a term used to describe the mirror-like quality of some objects of reflecting the consumer's qualities or evoking their memories. They become, to a certain extent, personified consumables. In a broader sense, "thing power" can also describe the loss or gain of value of an object, dependent on the connection/dynamic that different people establish with them. An evident example would be the saying: "one man's trash is another man's treasure", brought up by Rybczynski in "From Pollution to Housing", when he states that "one man's pollution is another man's housing."2 Thing power, or the appeal objects have on consumers, is a topic that can be linked to Pawley's interest in over-consumption, and its potential to become the driving force behind a new housing policy that incorporates waste into their agenda. According to this viewpoint, consumerism can be coupled with regenerative design to help alleviate the housing shortage, and at the same time reduce pollution.

1 "What if things really can (in an under-determined way) hail us and offer a glimpse, through a window that opens, of lively bodies unparsed into subjects and objects? How does that work? At best, this window has a rickety sash liable to slam shut without warning. And after it did that morning in Baltimore and I regained my composure as a subject among objects, I tried to narrate what I saw, to ennunciate this thing power..." Bennet, p.241
2 "These wastes may have a minimal value, like sulfur or fly ash, or none at all, like red mud; but to the non-industrialized builder, whose choice of materials has been traditionally small, and virtually unmchanged in the last two thousand years, the use of waste offers a way to improved, or new building materials. This was an important part of our experiment. One man's pollution is another man's housing." Rybezynski, P.786




Garbage Environment Atlas

Citations
Martin Pawley, Garbage Housing (London: The Architectural press), 47-114.
Jane Bennett, "Powers of The Hoard: Further Notes on Material Agency," in Animal, Vegetable, Mineral Ethics and Objects, ed. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen (Washington, DC: Oliphaunt Books), 237-269.
Witold Rybezynski, "From Pollution To housing," Architectural Design, vol. 12 (1973): 785-789.
Lydia Kallipoliti, "Dross City," Architectural Design, vol. 80 (2010): 102-109.