the importance of process

Easterling’s discussion of “spatial products” reinforces the potential of logic-driven processes and networks of data in the construction of space. According to Easterling, “spatial products substitute spin, logistics, and management styles, for considerations of location geometry, or enclosure” (Easterling 2). These “spatial products,” rather than responding to typical architectural contextual issues, attempt to efficiently and inventively accommodate economic strategies. Architecture, as an active process engrained with logics, gains the ability to participate in global politics when these processes are applied to and create material things, buildings. This different type of architecture, based on data, becomes specific to the ‘world’ that it is created from and because of its difference becomes involved with politics (4). Perhaps the interior workings of the building are more important than the building itself, where the building becomes a platform for the networks and processes. Zola describes the world of retail in Paris during the Haussmann rebuilding. Au Bonheurs des Dames is created and operated by the logic of numbers and is at odds with the old way of doing business. The machine of the operations of the store is supported by the spatial organization of the store. Each sales item has its own department within which the customers can get lost and the back office workings, placed in the basement and above the main floor, provide efficient spaces for the circulation of information and objects. In his success as a cheater and an optimist, Mouret is drawn into the politics of the world of retail and the tricks of making money.