Usable floor area in panic situations / EINSTWEILEN

Since 1998

Usable floor area in panic situations

Realisation Mousonturm Frankfurt/ M., 1. OG
2002

Usable floor area in panic situations

Realisation Spinnerei-Werkschau, Leipzig
2004

Usable floor area in panic situations

Realisation Bielefeld office building, EG+1.OG
2005

Usable floor area in panic situations

Realisation ideal house "Family 5", europe house
2005

Usable floor area in panic situations

Realisation for Halle 14, Leipzig
Culture of fear exhibition
2006

Usable floor area in panic situations

Realisation for Halle 14, Leipzig
Culture of fear exhibition
2006

If you can do absolutely nothing, then what do you do ?

2011

Phrase by Hisamatsu Shin’ich

Archives

On a display board, marked sections indicate where it is safe to stay in case of danger. Holding out is suggested instead of escaping.

On the floor plan of a building that shows the spectator’s position, marked sections indicate where it is safe to stay in case of danger. Instead of following possible escape routes, holding out is suggested. The usual search for orientation suddenly becomes a shock when the outrageousness of this enterprise is understood.
Fear is a serious pictorial experience.

Background

I
With the expansion of technology into all areas of life, the effects and consequences of danger have also increased. Evasion is no longer as easy as our natural patterns of behaviour would allow. In order to better deal with the danger of the present times, existing emergency plans should be developed. This is best done at a young age in learning processes after (repeated) successful handling of smaller context-based risky situations. In this way, a sense of confidence and awareness of our own scope for action gradually arises, thus helping us to master dangerous situations and to assess risk. A society in which children grow up in security-controlled and monitored environments is incapable of responding to unplanned events adequately, even harmless ones.
→ Such intolerance of the unexpected is dangerous.

At the same time, an increased dependence on energy, information and other forms of institutional supply has diminished our individual survival skills. This leads to disorientation in the case of a disaster and leading us to mimic what is around us in case of panic. However, finding independent solutions would increase our chance of survival. The movements of a mass of people trying to escape is frequently what claims more victims than if peril and danger had simply taken their course. Resistance to flow within such movements causes considerable convergences with no way out.

II
In graphic depictions of escape routes, it was surprising to see that, as a pushing mass, people assume a biomorphic shape – as if they were reviving an ancient and lost evolutionary existence. In their form responding to an inner stimulus, they create natural patterns which resemble birds in migration, energy distribution or sprawling rhizomes. The swarming monads form metameric segments with identical target information everywhere. The structural furcations take shape in bouts of violence (since they are either aggressive or ignorant among themselves) or at architectural features where important decisions must be made.

III
Analogue installation process of the displays
1) First all fixtures are recorded in an architectural floor plan.
2) Escape motions are then simulated on-site based on a mid-sized group of moving people subjected to the effects of a motor-driven momentum. In order to attain an even pattern, the notion of a sudden omnipresent but non-localisable danger is presupposed. The usual quantity of people is established on-site on a room-by-room basis. Habits that guide people and influence escape motions are recorded in interviews and combined with flow patterns. In the end, architectural floor plans with relatively detailed diagrams of swarms of people are created.
3) Surplus space becomes available if the swarms of people and the fixtures are left out of the floor plan. This space represents the ‘usable floor area in panic situations’. It is marked on green boards with photoluminescent paint.

The analogue model does not consider the momentum of small groups or individual turbulences. It is simplified into a flow pattern in which the mass is separated and accumulated without superimposing its initial intention with secondary reactions. Individual decisions are likewise neglected graphically.

The way these areas should be used is not determined in dramatic situations.

Realisations

1998: Galerie Fruchtig, Frankfurt
1999: Deutsches Ledermuseum, ground floor, Offenbach
2000: Galerie Pankow, Berlin
2001: Museumsakademie, Berlin
2002: Mousonturm, first floor, Frankfurt
2005: Bürogebäude, ground and first floor, Bielefeld
2006: Halle 14, first floor, Leipzig
2006: ACC Galerie, Weimar
2006: Baumwollspinnerei, Hall 9, basement, Leipzig
2006: Idealhaus Europa- Family 5 type

Usable floor area in panic situations

First draft
1997

Usable floor area in panic situations

Ideal panic, model
1998

Usable floor area in panic situations

First draft ideal panic
1997

Usable floor area in panic situations

Study on ideal panic
1999

Collection of escape routes

1997-2006

Hooray!

1998

I´ll bloody Leipzig you.

2012

Brochure

2011

Usable floor area in panic situations

Usable floor area in panic situations

Usable floor area in panic situations

Usable floor area in panic situations

Usable floor area in panic situations

Usable floor area in panic situations

Usable floor area in panic situations

If you can do absolutely nothing, then what do you do ?

Archives

Usable floor area in panic situations

Usable floor area in panic situations

Usable floor area in panic situations

Usable floor area in panic situations

Collection of escape routes

Hooray!

I´ll bloody Leipzig you.

Brochure

Impressum

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