Architectural design and managerial control: Lefebvre, Latour and the process of enrollment

Abstract

Organizational scholarship on architecture often applies Henri Lefebvre's conceived, perceived, and lived framework. Karen Dale and Gibson Burrell, most notably, have illustrated how architectural design exploits each of these, exerting managerial control through processes of enchantment, emplacement, and enactment. Although this "3E framework" has been productively applied to buildings from the modern and postmodern periods, its weaknesses become apparent in the current occupant-centric design period. Drawing on Actor Network Theory's account of translation, we propose enrollment-a 4th "E"-which enables us to better capture the nature of spatial control in the occupant-centric design period. Our 4E expanded spatial control framework recognizes the tensions that Lefebvre originally observed, tensions concealed by Dale and Burrell's otherwise rightly influential work. This expanded framework also augments our understanding of modern and postmodern periods: the dominant Building Movements of the past Century, we claim, have each engaged in a recursive enrollment of socio-political ideals.

Keywords: Actor-network theory; Lefebvre’s spatial triad; building movements; organizational space; spatial control.

Figure 1.

Theorization: Enrollment as the process weaving Lefebvre’s three moments into a coherent whole.

Figure 2.

Modern buildings. Top left: Crown Hall by Mies van der Rohe (photo: Joe Ravi CC BY-SA 3.0), bottom left: Villa Savoie by Le Corbusier (photo: m-louis CC BY-SA 2.0; cropped by author), right: Larkin Building (interior) by Frank Lloyd Wright (photo: David Romero CC BY-SA 3.0); images changed to black and white by author.

Figure 3.

“Daylit Factories” of Albert Kahn defined early 20th Century industrial architecture demonstrating similar open plans and high ceilings of industrial facilities (AEG turbine Factory, Peter Behrens, left, source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Peter-Behrens-Halle-innen-2005.JPG (CC-SA)) and offices (Johnson Wax Office, Frank Lloyd Wright, right, source: https://lccn.loc.gov/2011635092).

Figure 4.

Corporate power expressed through spaces conceived as a fortress, IBM Yorktown Heights by Eero Saarinen, left (https://www.loc.gov/resource/krb.00529/), or futuristic palace “where today meets tomorrow,” GM Technical Center—the “Versailles of Industry” (Kerr et al., 2016).

Figure 5.

Postmodern architecture exemplifying classical references to power (College Life Insurance Campus “Pyramids,” photo Serge Melki CC-BY-2.0; left), exaggerated motifs (AT&T Building, David Shankbone CC-BY-2.5; middle), and playfulness (Disney HQ, photo CoolCaesar CC-BY-SA-3.0; right).

Figure 6.

Leisure elements “cater to the whole employee,” reinforcing a flat hierarchy, and blur the lines of work and non-work life. Left to right: Google Headquarters (Mountainview) © Heatherwick studios; colorful hot-air balloon breakout spaces at Google Switzerland @Camenzind Evolution Architects; Apple Campus (Cupertino) © Foster + Partners.

Figure 7.

Bloomberg London’s sustainability features as conceived (left; image: Foster + Partners) and translated into perceived space (right; images: Bloomberg).

Figure 8.

The Spiral as conceived: (a) spiral galaxy as inspiration. (b) Spiral massing parti. (c) Spiral sectional parti. (d) Spiral inscribed with ‘Green’ and ‘Well’ building movement imagery—Images by BIG—Bjark Ingels Group.

Figure 9.

The Spiral as physicalized– (Image by Michael Young).

Figure 10.

The “social condenser” in The Edge, which enrolls sustainability and “connectivity” language in its conception Source: (Images: PLP Architects).

Figure 11.

The Edge as lived in virtual space (left; Image: Deloitte) and physical space (right) (Images: PLP Architects).

Figure 12.

Actor-network enrollment in knowledge workplaces.