Abstract
Migrants, students, digital nomads: an increasing number of people move and share homes beyond the nuclear family. The agility of movement requires them to inhabit existing homes historically conceived for single families, upending this typology through quick and often temporary transformations. The project Rolling Architecture (2009) by architect Andrés Jaque and the Office for Political Innovation provides an example of a different domesticity achieved through additive components: insertions that allow traditional homes to be adapted to new performative conditions. The following paper examines insertions from the early twentieth century, a period of rapid change when interior objects embodied newly modern and universal values: adaptability, mobility, efficiency, and hygiene. The cases reviewed convey the changing social and cultural factors that underpinned their performance and transformed standard Western housing. Rolling Architecture is a critical case that exceeds the twentieth-century capacity for transformation by articulating difference among heterogeneous communities. As a prototype, it is useful where saving space is imperative, and importantly, opens new approaches to design where there is a need to transform traditional domestic settings. Krzysztof Wodiczko’s Homeless Vehicle (1989) and Winfried Baumann’s Urban Nomads series (2001-2016) further provide valuable lessons as they make homelessness visible. Atelier OPA’s Kenchikukagu (2008) ultimately provides an example of manufacturing performative insertions at scale. While these cases bring awareness to the conditions of mobility, their implementation and impact are mediated by their experimental nature, leaving the question open as to whether they can foster forms of community detached from the permanence of the family home.
Presenters
Lorena QuintanaLecturer, Escuela de Arquitectura y Estudios Urbanos, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Capital Federal, Argentina Florencia Vetcher
Assistant Professor, Interior Design and Architecture, New York Institute of Technology, New York, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Domesticity, Temporary stability, Performative, Experimental, Mass-produced
