Desktopolis Part 2 Project 2006 Tomas KlassnikDesislava Asenova Royal College of Art | UK Suspended like a monumental executive toy above the spire of St Botolph’s church, Aldgate, sits the ‘Desktopolis’, exploiting some of London’s most valuable wasted airspace. Inside a mile long spiralling landscape supports neighbourhoods of domesticated desks, which mark the entrances to homes concealed in the ceiling voids above. Violence, lust and rivalry are encouraged, between individuals and their territories through the contamination of the towers’ program. Physical waste is also celebrated rather than concealed in this self-contained ecosystem of production and destruction. Part of a new pattern of social organisation, assembled beneath a sky of acoustic ceiling tiles. If architecture can be a ‘diagram’ of anything, a narrative device to understand and transform society, why are architects’ agendas still stubbornly focused on the moderate, acceptable, and ultimately positivist elements of our society? Tomas’ study into corporate architecture and capitalist production explored the potential for a different type of design where competitiveness, waste and extreme individualism are redeemed from their negative quality to become innovative architectural features.Tomas explored these issues from an urban scale counter-masterplan for the City of London, through the architectural scale of the tower and detailed integration of standard components within his office landscapes. Tutor(s)