Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

When "the common good" of a society is regarded as something apart from and superior to the individual good of its members, it means that the good of some men takes precedence over the good of others, with those others consigned to the status of sacrificial animals.
Aye Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

Abstract

Architecture today tends to focus on making a single statement for a building, rather than on expressing the varied occupants of the building. When a building's image is more important than its users, this can be the correct decision. However, when the building is designed primarily for its occupants, such as with an apartment building, it does not logically fit that the building should have one single expression. This conformist,

The residents of apartment buildings must become part of a larger architectural statement that has nothing to do with their individual identity. Apartment building design takes on the same ideas of office building design with a unified facade, but unlike an office, there are many different identities behind the walls that should be shown. Instead of the building reflecting the people within its walls, it makes its own statement that has little to do with its users. The facade is composed so that all of the windows line up in a nice, straight composition, rather than being designed to maximize their use for the resident of the space. The user's needs are secondary to those of the building as a

Objectives
Primary objective of this thesis is to ensure a design that
- Allows maximum room for individual expression, freedom and choice.
- Design chaos and randomness predicting growth and activity pattern.
- Attempt to define minimum normality – a “dwelling” e.g. instead of house.
- Subjectivity or individualism has to be relative to this normality.

Scope

There are many different approaches to thinking about an architecture fit for the individual. The most basic concept is to simply leave the space totally open so that each user can fit-out the space with walls and materials as they choose. Open building planning allows the theoretical maximum amount of freedom within a space because the users make all of the choices about how the space will be designed. Another option is to design each apartment differently to make each one of the apartment’s individual within the building. The final approach is a concept called polyvalency in which spaces are designed in order to provide many different possible uses without dictating any specific use for any