The Office of Human Resources (OHR) is a critical spatial practice operating within the instability of capitalism. We use spatial work in various forms to postulate and question the politics of space, identity, colonial history, and extractive economy to get closer to a new collective future.
Largely started by Robert Owens and Charles Babbage in the late 18th century, the field of human resources is a product of early industrial capitalism. It began with a focus on labor unions and the relationship between quality of life and productivity. However, its ubiquitous current form is vague and often serves as a bureaucratic nightmare. So in an era of technologically advanced capitalism, what does it mean to recruit, train, manage, compensate, yet comply as workers? When western forms of colonization established labor as a way to rationalize violence, how can we deconstruct the legality of labor to immaterial forms such as body and emotions? As precariats, can we combat social inequity while adapting to new systems in flux? OHR operates within this realm of societal questions and provocations.
/// OHR is currently directed by Stephanie Kyuyoung Lee.
image: still from Playtime (1967), Jacques Tati.
Lee's current project traces a comparative genealogy of radical ruralism—from early abolitionist communes to contemporary social justice-oriented farms across the US.
Her teaching and research engage utopian agrarian movements, botanical histories, and the rural commons as frameworks for design inquiry. She was the inaugural Architecture Fellow at Bard College, Strauch Fellow at Cornell University, and a 2020 Fellow of the Future Architecture Platform. She is the current Ann Kalla Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, School of Architecture.
Previously, she has worked as a designer with Shigeru Ban Architects, OPEN Architecture, and Carlo Ratti Associati, and has led exhibition design and fabrication for the artist Lee Bul. Her work has been supported by grants and residencies from the Mellon Foundation, New York State Council of the Arts, The Architectural League, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Arts Center Residency, and the Architecture Residency at Art Omi. She has exhibited at the Bibliowicz Gallery (Ithaca), Haus der Architektur (Graz), and citygroup (NYC). Her writing and interviews appear in The Funambulist, Koozarch, PLAT, and Archifutures (dpr-barcelona, 2020).
Lee holds a Master of Architecture from Rice University and a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology and Studio Art from Wesleyan University.
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image: Hugo Gernsback, The isolator (1925)