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We recently wrote a brief piece, “Appeal”<\/a>, for the excellent architecture journal Quaderns<\/em> in response to their most recent issue, “Parainfrastructures”<\/a>. We used this response as an opportunity to consider why we are so drawn to infrastructural landscapes like Blue Plains<\/a> — not just as sites of logistical and technological operations, but aesthetically<\/a> as well:<\/p>\n Let us suppose for a moment that the \u201cParainfrastructures\u201d which <\/a>Quaderns #262 concerns itself with are a class of things, that object-parodying helium balloons hovering around Heathrow Airport to block its expansion, inflatable \u201cinstant cities\u201d powered by air compressors, \u201cgeodesic domes, parachutes, spray-foam dwellings, zomes, space frames\u201d, \u201cindoor built and ephemeral complexes\u201d colonizing the open floor plans of abandoned airports, and architectural systems of \u201cair control\u201d can be read as a category of architectural objects called \u201cparainfrastructures\u201d. Even though we will be supposing in error\u2014because \u201cParainfrastructures\u201d never seeks to delineate its subject matter by so crude a means as a definition\u2014this seems a productive error, because it permits us to see a pervasive weirdness.<\/p>\n This weirdness, in the context of architectural critique, is that parainfrastructures paradoxically gain their strength and appeal from having been designed with a certain disregard for aesthetics. Parainfrastructures are constructed out of the banal materials of twentieth-century industrial innovation like synthetic fabrics, geotextiles, and industrial plastics, not the refined and expensive finishes of high-corporate architecture. Structurally, they depend on ties, straps, bendable rods, and air compressors\u2014temporary, flexible, contingent engineering.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Read the whole piece<\/a> at Quaderns<\/em> and, while you’re there, think about ordering the full issue<\/a>; it’s well worth your time, as it features contributions from John May, Enrique Ramirez, Roger Sauquet, Javier Garc\u00eda-Germ\u00e1n,\u00a0and more.<\/p>\n