43: Shelf Life F/W 2016

Out of stock

The more stuff we accumulate, the more space we need to store it all. Vast portions of the landscape are claimed and governed by spaces of storage, their maintenance, and the goods that move through them—or remain buried within them indefinitely.

This issue of Harvard Design Magazine investigates and unpacks the contents, containers, and systems of storage that organize our world.

Storage is the aggregation and containment of the material and immaterial stuff of culture; but also the safeguarding—or hoarding—of energy and tools for some imagined future purpose. How does all this stuff mask or overcompensate for economic and ecological bankruptcy? Is storage about greed or need? Storage, perhaps, is everything we can live without but insist on living with.

“Shelf Life” explores what’s inside the box (shed, tank, urn, vault, crypt, crate, case, pot, bag, vat, morgue, safe, bin, archive, warehouse, cabinet, cellar, cemetery, depository, locker, freezer, landfill, library). Even as we attempt to reduce and recycle, the stuff that we dispose of also needs to be stored. Where do we put it? Our planet is now a saturated receptacle. This warehouse is full, and we’re all inside it.

Table of Contents

Editors' Letter

Socks and Stocks

Jennifer Sigler

Column

Anxious about Stuff

Martti Kalliala

Architecture without Content

Kersten Geers

Carry, Conceal, Hide, Suggest, Cover

Femke de Vries, Joke Robaard

Crackers, Granite Mountain, and Future Memories

Brian Evenson

Cupboard Love

Emily King

Formatting the Modern Dream

Anna-Maria Meister

Repeat

Jonathan Olivares

Sant’Eustachio

Barry Yourgrau

The Five Points of Cloud Architecture

Antonio Furgiuele

The Temperamental Interior

John May, Zeina Koreitem

Essay

La Esmeralda, and a Brief Interrogation of Prison Ship Memory

Bryan Finoki

Before BILLY: A Brief History of the Bookcase

Shannon Mattern

Gray Space

Alex O’Briant

Hiding in Plain View

Mark Mulligan

Hoarders of Magnitude: Super (and Not-So-Super-) Organisms

Kiel Moe

Life in Storage

Peggy Kamuf

Notes on More

Andrew Holder

Objectives: The Architectural Potentials of Storage

Megan Panzano

Storage Flows: Logistics as Urban Choreography

Clare Lyster

The Trove: On Vaults, Innards, and the Broad Collection

Mimi Zeiger

Interview

Designing the Void

Anupama Kundoo, Ateya Khorakiwala

Talking Objects

Martin Roth, Mohsen Mostafavi

Under the Bed Is a Dark, Cool Place

Christina E. Crawford, Darra Goldstein

Unité as White Cube

Alex Kitnick, Tom Burr

Photo Essay

Assemblages

Armin Linke

Artifact

A Civic Monument That Never Was

Fabrizio Gallanti

Built Like a Skyscraper

Craig Robertson

Catching Rain in Singapore

Benjamin Leclair-Paquet

Grain Silos Go to India

Ateya Khorakiwala

Information Material

Jesse LeCavalier

Keeping It Fresh

Daisy Tam, Melissa Cate Christ, Tomas Holderness

Learning from the Steel

Susan Nigra Snyder

Mammoth and Other Frozen Meats

Hi’ilei Julia Hobart

Marking Toxicity

Peter Galison, Robb Moss

Meals, Ready to Throw Away

Jesse Connuck

Media Clutter

Lynn Spigel

Slope to Drain

Kate Orff

The Other City

Samuel Medina

Trash at the Center of the Theater of the World

DESIGN EARTH

Use in Case of Emergency Only

Jacob Lillemose

When Aalto Met Google

Rory Hyde

Insert

In My Possession

Maira Kalman

Plus

Lager: Two Storage Buildings for Ricola

Jacques Herzog

Cryogenesis

Rhonda Ganz

Fulfillment

David Zielnicki

Colophon

Editor in Chief
Jennifer Sigler


Deputy Editor
Leah Whitman-Salkin

Publications Coordinator
Meghan Ryan Sandberg

Creative Direction & Design
Jiminie Ha, Fahad Al–Hunaif
With Projects, Inc.

Editorial Support
David Huber, Gina Ciancone

Proofreader
Rebecca McNamara

Printer
Die Keure, Belgium