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The [Reformatorium] is a marvellous machine which, whatever use one may wish to put it to, produces homogeneous effects of [connection].*
The [Reformatorium] is a marvellous machine which, whatever use one may wish to put it to, produces homogeneous effects of [connection].*In a world of sustained quarantine, human connection is near impossible; emotion is obsolete, leaving humans as bodies flickering between the threat and the threatened existing within systems of containment.
As existing infrastructure does not account for logistics and emotional impact of quarantine, imaginary developers advertise The Reformatorium, an experimental living complex that facilitates human connection while maintaining control over the spread of disease, allowing humans to ‘rehabilitate’ to a reminisced state of emotion. By examining nonphysical ways in which humans connected with one another in the past, the developers dilute human connection down to three methods that are translated spatially to facilitate said connections: delayed connection is that of shared materiality over time, “direct” connection in “real” time, and connection via third party, which is that of a shared experience or object. Additionally, The Reformatorium embeds theory of rhizomatic and arborescent structures to entertain architecture’s relationship with control, autonomy, and the built environment playing the role as the container, or the protector.
* “The Panopticon is a marvellous machine which, whatever use one may wish to put it to, produces homogeneous effects of power.”
—Michel Foucault, “Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison,” p. 202