The Great National Diet.

Evolution allows for a genuine renewal in architectural discourse because architecture is ultimately rooted in the corporeal relationship of the human body. Since the doric columns, architecture was conceived out of the human body. The fundamental connection between the body and space, so called human scale, is the primary instrument in which architecture triggers various spatial experiences – awe, comfort, security, uncanny,familiarity, and sublime. While humanity can now evolve through various different facets – cybernetic, virtual, etc.. physiological change still remains as the most influential change that will affect architecture.

This project is a prospective speculation about Beijing’s architecture of corporeal relationship of architecture to the human body, a urban realm with more than single ‘human beings’. Continuing the legacy of one child policy, China initiates her next generation of biopolitics. In order to deal with the growing impacts of massive population and its collateral implications, China embarks on national ‘diet’; Bejiing is its testbed. Trailing the popularity of cosmetic body modification : plastic surgery, weight loss programs, China launches its wave of subtle propaganda for the super thin. The required operation is dramatic, removal of now obsolete organs – large intestine and a third of digestive tract, and shaving & redensification of bone marrows. The result is a figure reduced to half the width of normal person. This radical operation is slowly cajoled through the media. Celebrities are the first subjects to undergo the change to advertise its ‘new glamour’. On top of its fashionability, much effort is made to propagate the idea its patriotic values. Becoming thin helps the economy, reduces unnecessary consumption and production of waste, solves real estate problems! Furthermore, huge subsidies are given to individual who volunteer to undergo this procedure. New-borns are dosed with hormones to smoothly transition into the newly formed national figure.

The amount of population in the city that has undergone the diet reaches half of its population. New Super-thin blocks are built across the city gently layering over existing urban fabric – the old city that was for the preceding human proportions Beijing essentially becomes a city with two types of people. The average and the superthin. The city is layered with newly constructed thin slabs that run across the city. Each unit is metre wide, and 10 metres deep. New furniture for the super thin are introduced. Series of streamlined furnitures catered for the slim man create new conventions of ergonomics and design in relationship to the new body.

Beijing with its unintentionally becomes fashion capital of the world. With its new population of extremely thin, the new body proportions of the ‘Beijingian’ become the new fashion focus. All the thin people are essentially models, and their daily life as is recorded through camera drones that capture individuals with the sponsored clothing lines from all over the world. Individuals are encouraged to walk on the rooftops, becoming impromptu runways while aerial cameras shutter to capture their chic.