Adventures on Studio Shared 2.0 Part IV (Conclusion)

23rd May & 30th May 2018 – A Neighbour in Need is a Neighbour Indeed?

We’ve reached the semi end goal.

Penultimate that is.

And believe me – it was pretty fun trying to present ourselves like a commercial, albeit – it was quite cringe worthy when I was listening to my own voice on the television (after all, nobody likes to hear their recorded voice).

There were a lot of discussion about our project on whether it was viable in comparison to just simply building a house in your own yard and renting it out, and it made us really consider our arguments on the reason why our project would be more successful in comparison to others, let alone be better than others.

Thinking about it – I feel like at the end of the day, the reason why we have these kinds of situations is because of this desire and need to have a home. A place to stay, and something that you can feel entitled to. It’s something that has been culturally ingrained in us that we have to own something.

Which is something I find ironic considering that I’m starting to see articles about millennials not wanting to own a load of items albeit I feel like we are still under the societal pressure of accomplishing many milestones.

Which then I believe breeds new methods on how to successfully support yourself at this age, taking our time, sorting things out, travel.

Considering our research that we have done and the way we have marketed our proposal – it really rings true to what we’ve been discussing on this entire semester, borrowing a terminology and then really manipulating the intentions of it.

More importantly, from our project, it is so easy to realise that there is still this obvious class divide that still lives within us internally and in our society today. So while our project is still trying to limit the main separation of the social housing dwelling, we are still leaving an obvious sign of knowing who lives in what – considering the program was designed specifically for this demographic. It’s hard really, when you want to promote something egalitarian there will be a lot of elephants that needs to be addressed.

So once again, how much honesty and transparency do we need in our schemes and projects. Moreover, when will we be faced with the reality check that not everything will turn out the way we wish it to be?

6th June – My Stand Point

After twelve weeks of looking into the sharing economy as a whole. I have a lot of questions left:

-        Are we truly in the sharing economy if people are simply buying up resources and leasing them en mass? From the looks of the current situation, we are simply borrowing the good intentions of “sharing” and masking it under “short term rental” and I feel like it has defeated the purpose altogether

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The economy itself is helpful to an extent for those who need to find other means to afford certain services, however it also breeds a new kind of standard that can either be positive or negative (think ‘why hire a professional when I can do it myself?)

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Given that there will forever be constant loopholes for people to exploit these programs, how should we really crack down on these kinds of situation? I don’t believe architecture is the concrete solution, but rather somehow train big parties to have better communication between each other so then there is a tighter net to prevent people from entering demoralising methods (i.e. that monster house in Brunswick)

-        I do believe architecture can be a solution if the critique can be communicated by those who are willing to listen. There is a different between those who are wanting to listen for the sake of listening and those who are willing to wake up to the problem that is blaring straight at their faces

Sometimes I’d like to believe that one day that people will use it with good intentions: going back to truly sharing their houses rather than sharing five apartments and three houses altogether, actually car sharing because both of you are heading to similar destinations, however that is mostly wishful thinking.

Despite having a debate about our opinions and our sidings on the sharing economy, I still find today that while the sharing economy is beneficial to our society today, I feel that there is still something missing or lacking – I feel that we need to truly find someone who is extremely creative in exploitation of platforms and understand where the issues of this program are. Otherwise, I feel that we need to bring back more transparency into our systems. From the debate, my opponent brought forth the social aspects of the sharing economy, that is AirBnb helping the homeless otherwise supporting artists in the making, that’s great and all but it would’ve been better if the awareness was more publiticsed. Perhaps this is my main gripe with charities at times, epescially when I am someone who would like to know what difference has my contribution make otherwise just understand the work in progress situation. We know that there are some things that should be kept below the surface however, when the progress is rather helpful to the society, why keep it under the wraps?

Yet, we need to consider the catch twenty-two situation here. Sometimes we can’t tell if good publicity could also indicate some doubts about the sincerity about these programs (which I am pretty sure I wrote about in my previous entries).

I feel, from the research that I have read up – ‘trust’ seems to come back up in almost every conversation about the sharing economy. The economy of trust, perhaps is something we shouldn’t really take all too lightly. What I sometimes find disheartening is that our society today is so heavily invested in being connected to the social network that we are so easily consumed and become more trusting in the people we barely see in comparison to those we meet on a regular basis. And this brings me back to the point where I question about our human nature – have we completely become within the net like the citizens living in ‘Ready Player One’? (I am referring to the book! Haven’t seen the film yet). Moreover, because everyone is always scrambling to find something that suits their means that we sometimes forget to carefully think about the implications we have towards our society. I myself am guilty into impulsive decisions, this trait coupled with my tumultuous stress about my own finances, I find myself fall into the category of finding simple ways to profiting extra money for myself (yes, I aim to purchase a holiday house first so I can continuously rent it out on short term stays… good thinking yea? No.) On the other hand, I believe that while we do have our other priorities within our lives now, especially for me and my peers at this age of figuring and carving out our own identity and values that we are yet to be blindsided by the implications should we continue to support these ‘co-sharing’ businesses. Arguably, we can say that this is a generational thing, where because we are now starting to want more experiences (bring on more stage Instagram photos please, except maybe add a touch of  Inkwell filter so we can get some monotoned travelling tones and not bright colours thanks), the culture of FOMO (fear of missing out) and change of societal standards within different families, we don’t really consider many long term factors as early in comparison to our parents dare I say.

My counsellor told me that my main worries about my own future appears to be a branch off from “second generation migrant struggles” or “second generation migrant identity crisis”. To be honest, while my whole family are immigrants to Australia – it is the culture that we brought from our hometown (Hong Kong) along with the culture of the schools that I have attended (we study extremely hard to get our top ten out of forty grade ranking in our school report to please our parents and ourselves maybe) that I am constantly questioning about whether I’d be able to battle out the struggles today.

In all honesty though, I feel like this studio has truly opened my eyes to more economical struggles. Even before travelling to London during my third year, I never understood what AirBnb was nor its implications. Partially this is my own doing considering travelling was never something that attracted me, nor me wanting to enlighten myself about the world around me. From the start of the studio till now, I’d say that I think I’ve managed to grasp the shell of what the ‘sharing economy’ is. However, seeing that this term and its own terminology has been manipulated, edited and spliced by many people that I am still collecting bread crumbs that the pair of siblings left behind in the forest – otherwise still trying to find the needle in the haystack.

One last thought – if we didn’t look at the ‘sharing economy’ through multiple lenses, would our projects develop a similar outcome? Because, if we didn’t go through all of these debates, would we manifest a simpler outcome and later realise what implications and messages that it brings which would effectively become the critique? I reckon it is because I have reached a point where my brain doesn’t function as creatively as I’d like it to, otherwise realise extra potentials in our projects. Yet, looking back at my reflections from the start to now, almost every week there has been a steady flow of questions about our stance towards this kind of economy – and mine has started to solidify to and extent I believe it is still in the shallow end.

Needless to say I need a holiday.

But I think I might book a hotel for now…