Final Exam pt I

Trent Huismann
Home as a Workplace

Many people have done some sort of work out of their house or have sun some sort of home based business (such as a daycare) for a short period of time. Some people however, run businesses out of their homes for a good part or for most of their lives. In the case of the building Les Olympiades in France and the town of Elche, Spain, There has been a long history of working from home and as a result the creation of the new identity of the home as a workplace.
In the town of Elche, Spain, has formed a new way of manufacturing and changed the idea of a traditional workplace completely. Instead of waking up every morning to go to a factory or other traditional workplace, the workers of numerous shoe and textile companies have workers stitch and manufacture shoes in their own home. The materials are brought to the workers, and they are completed, and further manufactured at another workers residence, factory, or workshop until there is a finished product. This has somewhat changed the layout of the town and challenges the idea of a traditional workplace by creating small nodes where people work, instead of having a large factory setting.
The building Les Olympiades in France was once part of a large urban building plan in Paris, France in the 1970's. The building was meant to house 16,000 people, and it turned into a failed project when the building did not meet the standards of it's intended target market. In 1974, political refugees mostly from southeast Asia rented out the vacant parts of the building at a reduced rate. The Asiatic community living in the building started to use the underground parking area in the building for market and retail space. Many of the residents of the building also work or own restaurants or retail space in Les Olympiades. And many of the restaurants in the building get most of their produce and goods from other stores in the building. Many of the residents of the building find this convenient, they can work, sleep, and buy goods all in the same building, and many of the residents said that there is almost no need to leave.
With the creation of this new identity as a home laborer, or having your home and your workplace in the same location, people have seen this new workplace setting as an advantage. In Elche, many of the women like the location of their work because they are able to take care of their family and make a living and not have to worry about travel times to a factory. In Les Olympiades, many people enjoy working and living in the same place, because it creates a new sort of social community where people no longer need to go to the bank to get a loan, the community can lend them money. Also, many of the businesses that are in the building depend on one another for survival.
Many of the people that have adapted this “work at home” lifestyle like it quite a bit and many do not want to go back to working in a separate location just because of convenience. The only real instance of a major disadvantage is in Elche, where labor contracts are not given out and people are often times underpaid. The home labor in Elche will soon be made legal, meaning that labor contracts and minimum wage standards will be enforced.
In both cities, the residents have had a significant impact on their physical landscape. In Elche, the town has been called by Multiplicity as “a network of production points that embraces the entire city”. The reason why Multiplicity says this is because production is scattered throughout the city, and there is a network of vehicles and people keeping production going the residents have gotten rid of the traditional factory setting, in favor of a workplace at home. Multiplicity calls Les Olympiades “a city in a building”, due to the large amount of people and businesses in one building. Residents of Les Olympiades have taken the idea of a traditional home, and transformed it into a small community and a network of businesses and people that rely upon one another for survival. In the cases of Elche, Spain or the Les Olympiades building in France, residents have challenged the idea of a traditional workplace in favor of working from home.