Wells Eleanor

Domesticity and Attachment: A Study of House, Home, Family and Object in an Age of Social Alienation Eleanor J Wells

Eleanor Wells 10092241

Domesticity and Attachment: A Study of House, Home, Family and Object in an Age of Social Alienation Module P30600 Original Date of Submission: 30 April 2012

This Major Study is presented to the School of Architecture, Oxford Brookes University in part fulfilment of the regulations for the Diploma in Architecture. Statement of Originality This Major Study is an original piece of work which is made available for copying with permission of the Head of the School of Architecture. Signed ………………

[ Contents]

VOLUME I SECTION I PROJECT RATIONALE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Of the House – Of the Home – Of the Family – Of the Object

METHODOLOGY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Social Anthropology- Ethnography- Visual Ethnography - Photography - Visual recordings – Plans- Historical Theory - Humanist theory- Anthropological theory- Archiving- The Grid- Post-Structuralist Theory and Discourse- Reflexive Collage - Film - Physical Models- Architect as Active Innovator

SECTION II DEVELOPED SURFACE DRAWINGS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Introduction to Method – Description of Research Exercises- The People and The House – The Object and the House – House, Home, Family and Flexibility – Isolating the Object- Reflections on Exercises

SURFACE I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 The People and the House : A Collection of Individuals – The Object and the House – Collage on Housing - Isolating the Object: Casting - Collaging the External – A Place to Play

SURFACE II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 The People and the House : A Settled Family – The Object and the House – Collage on Home - Isolating the Object: Erasure

SURFACE III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 The People and the House: A Constructed Family – The Object and the House – Collage on Flexibility - Isolating the Object: Cutting – A Place to Make Things

SURFACE IV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48 The People and the House : An Uncertain Family – The Object and the House – Collage on Family – Case Studies: Robin Hood Gardens and Walter’s Way – Robin Hood Gardens – Background on Walter’s Way – Reflections – Of the Community – Of the Home Office and Enterprise

SECTION III

MY FAMILY ARCHIVE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

SURFACE V . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 My Objects in My Grandfather’s House – Objects in My Parents’ House – Reflections – Of The Kitchen as a Place to Make Things – The Farm Project –

SURFACE VI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 My Grandfather’s Objects – Of The Digital – Objects in My Grandfather’s House – Of The Elderly

SURFACE VII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 Introduction to Spaces of Memory and Imagination – Cracks in the Ground- Enough Light to Read By – Entering the Garden – Shaft of Light – Building with Cushions – Of Children

SECTION IV

DESIGN PROJECT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Proposing a Collaged Architecture – The 10 Conclusions – The Strategies – The Site – Site Plan – Site Photos and Analysis

DESIGN STRATEGIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .100 The Classroom – The Community Bakery - The Walled Garden – The Conservatory - The Enterprising Office –- The Playground and the Pool – The Frame - The Ball Park – The Split House

VOLUME II

MY FAMILY ARCHIVE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

SURFACE V . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 My Objects in My Grandfather’s House – Objects in My Parents’ House – Reflections – Of The Kitchen as a Place to Make Things – The Farm Project –

SURFACE VI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 My Grandfather’s Objects – Of The Digital – Objects in My Grandfather’s House – Of The Elderly

SURFACE VII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 Introduction to Spaces of Memory and Imagination – Cracks in the Ground- Enough Light to Read By – Entering the Garden – Shaft of Light – Building with Cushions – Of Children

SECTION IV

DESIGN PROJECT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Proposing a Collaged Architecture – The 10 Conclusions – The Strategies – The Site – Site Plan – Site Photos and Analysis

DESIGN STRATEGIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .100 The Classroom – The Community Bakery - The Walled Garden – The Conservatory - The Enterprising Office –- The Playground and the Pool – The Frame - The Ball Park – The Split House

STRATEGIES IN DETAIL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 The Conservatory – The Pool – The Split House

CONCLUSIONS . . . . . . . . . . .184 BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . 185

APPENDICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

[ Project Rationale ] Of the House – Of the Home – Of the Family – Of the Object

1

Of the House

In his film The Dilapidated Dwelling (2000), Patrick Keiller draws attention to the state of housing

in Britain. The film declares that houses in Britain are some of the most dilapidated in Western

Europe. It also makes reference to the fact that our way of living has changed drastically since

before the emergence of digital technology but that our houses have stayed relatively the same.

There is a suggestion that architectural thought has of late been directed more to the large scale

public buildings, neglecting the domestic. I would like to find out whether or not the houses that

we have now, and that are currently being designed, are suitable for contemporary living.

In order to look at the suitability of houses for current and future living, it is important to

question how ‘house’ relates to ‘home’, and ‘home’ relates to ‘family’ in an age of digital

technology.

Of the Home

To question the link between house and home, it is useful to examine what various theorist mean

by home. Home is sometimes discussed in relation to its links to place and people. Blunt and

Dowling, (2006) explain ideas of home from the perspective of humanist geographers who

“privilege an idea of home as grounding of identity, an essential place.”

Home is said to be “a place, a site in which we live.” But, it is not solely a physical place. It may

be linked to place and people but it is also “an idea and an imaginary that is imbued with

feelings.” (Blunt and Dowling, 2006, p.2)

For Humanist geographers, home was much more than a house, and much more than feelings of

attachment towards particular places and people. It was hearth, “an anchoring point through

which human beings are centred.” (Blunt and Dowling, 2006, P.6)

2

Of the Family

Trends in family living have most certainly changed over the past 100 years. It would appear

that there has been a shift from a primarily multi-generational family to more nuclear and single

living. Many houses that were designed to accommodate large, multi-generational families have

been altered and adapted. Significant numbers have been split into flats or apartments, and

rooms are used quite differently to how they were intended to be, often at the expense of social

spaces. (Taylor, 2011) Similarly, as property costs have risen, smaller houses have been

extended and adapted in various ways to accommodate more people.

I am interested in how different families have appropriated the spaces within a house, adapting

and changing them to suit their own needs.

In my own experience, the family and those that are part of a household, are not necessarily

constant. Families grow and shrink, their needs change, children leave and sometimes come

back, however most houses are designed as static units. This raises the question of whether the

houses that architects design are suitable for this style of living.

The idea that families and household are continually in a state of flux gives weight to the

argument put forth by Till and Schneider, (2007, p.1) that the most lasting and sustainable

houses are the ones that can be adapted. It would appear that some houses are more readily

adapted than others.

In my opinion, it is also a pertinent issue in the digital age to address the changing forms of social

relations within families. We have our own personal entertainment with computers and we no

longer have to gather to the hearth for warmth so perhaps this means that we need another

forum for communing as families.

Daniel Miller, in his book The Comfort of Things (2008), writes about people and their

relationships to objects. He looks at how individuals express themselves through their

possessions. He argues that people are networks of relationships and that often the closer our

relationships are to objects, the closer they are to people.

If this is a valuable development in current thought, perhaps it is important then to ask the

question, how does ‘family’ relate to ‘object?’

3

Of the Object

The significance of the object in the home is a noteworthy subject. If, as Daniel Miller asserts,

the object is an expression of self, of memories and significance, that speaks about relationships to

people, perhaps it would be interesting to begin to look at the object as a generator for design.

To this end, many of my early design exercises are based around the study of the object within

the home.

Interest in the object is not a new phenomenon. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,

Cabinets of Curiosity showcased collections of objects, for display and observation. The objects

contained in the cabinets were supposed to inspire a sense of ”wonder and awe.” The modern

museum may owe its existence to these cabinets. (Goldyne, 2000, p.6)

In the 18th century there was a shift to a more scientific way of thinking about the world and

during the 19th century there was a fascination with machines. The cabinet of curiosities

disappeared. Today we may be seeing a return to an interest in the object and a movement away

from the mechanistic approach of the machine age. The objects that Daniel Miller writes about

are not to do with function, they are to do with expression and attachment.

Cabinets of curiosities were full of exotic and strange artifacts with stories and memories

attached to them. They were, in a sense, an archive or a museum of the artist or collector, and

presented something about them. It could be suggested that the home is a version of the cabinet

of curiosities, displaying artifacts that express something about the person who lives there.

With this in mind, to collect and archive the objects of a house could be a worthwhile venture. It

would be an archive, not of the extraordinary, but the everyday, logging the meanings and

memories attached to the objects of peoples’ lives.

4

[ Methodology ] Social Anthropology- Ethnography- Visual Ethnography - Photography - Visual recordings – Plans-

Historical Theory - Humanist theory- Anthropological theory- Archiving- The Grid- Post-Structuralist

Theory and Discourse- Reflexive Collage - Film - Physical Models- Architect as Active Innovator

5

In order to conduct my research project I am using the following methods:

Social Anthropology Anthropology is defined as “the study of human behaviour in all places and at all times.” My interest, in relation to this project is in Social Anthropology, “the study of human groups, with a particular emphasis on the social structure.” (Angrosino, 1990, p.1) I am employing the approach of social anthropology because I believe that the study of people and society is crucial to the study and practice of architecture in general, and in particular, to this study on the home. People and relationships are at the core of the family and the place where we live. The study of anthropology is heavily reliant on field work. The anthropologist's approach is often to live with the subjects of their study for a set period of time so that they become “both participants in and observers of the culture of the group.” (Angrosino, 1990, p.3) An anthropological approach has not often been used in architecture but, in my opinion, offers useful insights into what is needed from the built environment. It has been suggested that “anthropological approaches to fieldwork may be used in architecture as a method of observation, data acquisition and representation.” (Ewing, 2011, p.8) Anthropological data is often heavily text-based. My study is combining text and image, verbal account with visual. In comparing art and anthropology, Schneider and Wright (2010, p.1) state that “primary divisions between the fields, from either of the two disciplines, often mask an ensemble of heterogeneous discourses that in fact have much common ground.” It could be suggested that the same is true with architecture and anthropology.

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Ethnography Ethnography is one of many approaches that can be found within social research today, whose meaning can vary. The term itself, according to Hammersley and Atkinson (2007), originates in Western anthropology, where ethnography is a “descriptive account of a community or culture.” When speaking about data collection, the ethnographer usually participates “overtly or covertly” in the daily lives of their subjects, watching, asking questions and listening, for an extended period of time. The ethnographer sometimes collects documents and artifacts that may be relevant. (Hammersley and Atkinson, 2007, p.1) I am employing ethnographic methods in an active study of the home and its objects. I have used it as a qualitative way of describing what is in a house. I have also visited houses and used informal interviews with the occupants to try to understand how they have appropriated and made each house into a home. Auto-ethnography refers to “an individual researcher’s study of his or her own life and context” (Hammersley and Atkinson, 2007, p.1.) I am employing an element of auto-ethnography in my studies of my family homes and archives of personal possessions and memories.

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Visual Ethnography - Photography

As part of the ethnographic research of houses, I am using photography to record information.

Photography has long been used by Anthropologists as a research method, as well as a research

source. Collier states that “the critical eye of the camera is an essential tool in gathering accurate

visual information because we moderns are often poor observers.” (Collier and Collier, 1986, p.5)

The camera can be an extension of our senses, but in research is only a means to an end, namely

accurate observation. The meaning in a photograph can only be interpreted through a human

response and analysis. The advantage of the camera is that information can be recorded without

being much abstracted. The camera “faithfully records” no matter how small or select a

composition might be. It is “a tool of both extreme selectivity and no selectivity at all” (Collier

and Collier, 1986, p.9) and thus extremely valuable to the observer. But even with something so

seemingly objective as photography, it is not free from bias as it is operated by a person who

chooses what to photograph and how. (Collier and Collier, 1986, p.10)

A disadvantage to the photographic research method is that there can be an overload of

information for controlled analysis. As Collier and Collier (1986, p.13) state, “One photograph

may contain a thousand elements” and of course, another issue is that the photograph is a

snapshot of a very short moment in time which could be unrepresentative of the normal state. It

would seem, therefore, important with photographic research to have a framework for distilling

information.

Visual recordings - Plans My visual recordings are also taking the form of conventional architectural plans. By beginning with an established method of recording data, I am able to frame some subjective findings within hard data. I have made visual recordings of houses as a means of discourse analysis. These are useful to begin to think about house and home.

8

Figure 1. Example of use of photography as a medium for study of objects.

9

Main Theory Historical Texts such as The RIBA book of British Housing by Coloquon (2008), and The Name of the Room, by Rivers et al. (1992) describe the history of the house and home in Britain, including housing policy, historical movements in art and design, and post-war housing. It is useful for this study to be able to locate it historically. The Dilapidated Dwelling, a film by Patrick Keiller (2000), has been valuable in highlighting some of the current issues in housing in an age of Capitalism and digital technology. It states that the housing in Britain is some of the most dilapidated in western Europe and speaks about the inability of modern Capitalism to deal with the domestic.

Humanist theory

The architect Aldo van Eyck is associated with the Humanist movement. The post-war

generation that Van Eyck was part of, were “committed to replacing the mechanistic doctrines of

the postwar reconstruction with a humanist architecture.” Van Eyck’s architecture stems from a

belief in people and community and a distain for the funtionalism of the Modernists. He states

that “Whatever space and time mean, place and occasion mean more!” (Lefaivre and Tzonis,

1999, p.2)

Anthropological theory

In his book The Comfort of Things, the anthropologist Daniel Miller (2008) describes studies made

on 30 houses and people in a London street. He writes about people and their relationships to

objects, proposing that these are indicators of their relationships to people. His anthropological

approach is a method that I am choosing to employ because my study is primarily concerned with

people and relationships.

10

Archiving

With inspiration from Daniel Miller’s theory of objects (2008), I am using the medium of

photography to do a study of objects in people’s houses. This is in a sense an archival project.

The particular houses that I have chosen are significant to me and are ones that I can have a

deeper connection with. My Grandfather’s house, my parents’ house and my own house are my

areas of study. They show a generational connection and an historical continuity. I am

interested to see whether the objects in each house are reflective of the age in which the

occupants grew up and whether there is any connection between the three houses.

The Grid

Rosalind Krauss in The Originality of the Avant Garde and other modernist myths (1986) speaks about

the use of the grid in Modernism, an “emblem of Modernity”. She describes it as “the means of

crowding out the dimensions of the real and replacing them with the lateral spread of a single

surface.” The grid is a human construct, an artificial order and is, according to Krauss, “the

result, not of imitation, but of aesthetic decree.” (Krauss, 1986, p.9-10)

I am using the construct of the grid to bring together the photographs of objects that I have

taken. It is to give evenness of representation to the images that I have collected. This enables

me to read and analyse it critically.

Post-structuralist Theory and Discourse

Leach (1997, p.283) talks about Roland Bathes and the theory of post-structuralism. According

to Leach, Barthes encouraged an increase "not in functional studies of the city, but in readings of

the city.” (p.168) He talked about the city itself as a discourse.

In relation to this theory, I am making subjective readings of houses and homes within this

framework of post-structuralism. I am developing a discourse around my work and findings.

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Reflexive Collage

I am using collage as a reflexive method of research. It is a means of interrogating ideas and

critiquing my own work.

Reflexivity is a fairly recent methodology. It is, according to Etherington (2004, p.19), “an ability

to notice our responses to the world around us, other people and events, and to use that

knowledge to inform our actions, communications and understandings.”

The use of self has, over the past few years become increasingly legitimate in research, says

Etherington. It is framed in a context of postmodern thought where nothing is said to be fixed,

and where the development of social science marks a move away from religion as accepted truth.

It leans to a more subjective idea of reality. There is a growing recognition that all observers and

interpreters, to an extent, bring “themselves, and their prior knowledge and personal and cultural

histories, into the equation” and that that in itself has value. (Etherington, 2004, p.26)

The reflexive approach to making collages involves collecting information and, using collage as

form of discourse analysis. It allows the presentation of information which generates discourse

and prompts conclusions. The conclusions are then themselves critiqued and analysed. Each

iteration of the collaged boards is analysed visually and conceptually, allowing a step back from

the process. Conclusions are considered for inclusion in the next iteration of the collages. It is a

means of self-critique and development of an argument. This method of research is appropriate

to my study because much of my data is subjective and personal.

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Film

I am using the medium of film to work on top of my photographs and collages. It is a way of

bringing animation to drawings that I have already done.

Physical Models

I am using physical modelling to build 3d representations of spaces.

Architect as Active Innovator Angrosino (1990, p.3) states that “Anthropologists attempt to live for an extended period of time among the people the study. They are both participants in and observers of the culture of the group.” My position in this study is party anthropological but it is not restricted to that. The Anthropologist is there to observe and to record; the Architect is an innovator and interpreter. The studies that I am doing originate in observation but are with a view to making interventions and changes. The use of reflexive collage is a way of not just observing, but of engaging in the discourse and proposing new developments.

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[ Developed Surface Drawings ]

Introduction to Method – Description of Research Exercises- The People and The House – The Object

and the House – House, Home, Family and Flexibility – Isolating the Object- Reflections on Exercises

14

Introduction to Method Developed Surface Drawings

As part of a required submission of 1m x 1m panels as presentation boards, I have begun a reflexive process of investigation and design. The boards serve as a surface that facilitates investigations that physically and theoretically build on top of each other. All my work is to be presented on these boards. Each iteration of the collaged boards is analysed visually and conceptually, and photographed, allowing a step back from the process, and is then considered and critiqued for the next iteration of the collages and design.

Most of my investigation work is done on these boards or ‘Surfaces’. Each layer is photographed

and printed in this book with some accompanying text. The surfaces, though given separate

chapters of the book to show the build-up of layers, are all interlinked and have influenced each

other. They are not to be looked at as isolate images. This book is intended to be a visual log of

the build-up process, coming to conclusions and designing from those.

The boards explore a question or a theme which consequently rasies more questions or themes to

be investigated. The exploration of these themes sometimes takes the form of research into

theorists and ideas as well as primary research and reflection.

Some of the Research exercises were carried out on four surfaces simultaneously and some were

performed as singular responses to individual surface drawings. The following list of exercises is

to be used as an introduction to the Developed Surface Drawings and is to be referred back to as

a means of explaining the exercises.

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Introduction to Method Research, Theory and Design Exercises

The research presented as Developed Surface Drawings is compiled around a number of Exercises. There are 8 Research Exercises, each of which is explained more thoroughly as it is introduced. This paper is primarily a presentation of the Developed Surface Drawings, each chapter being the tale of one 'surface' with many drawings. Each exercise prompted development or inspired a new idea for the next drawing on each Surface The Research Exercises were carried out alongside exploration into Theory and Ideas. These findings are presented as pieces of writing, interspersed where relevant, amongst Research Exercises. Ideas from these writings are incorporated into many of the 'Surfaces' and prompt further study. Research Exercises and Theory and Ideas also provoke Design Exercises as the project develops. Conclusions and reflections from these inform the next stages. The paper is split into fours sections and two volumes. Section one is introductory text. Section two involves primary research, looking at different forms of housing and ways of living, together with writing on the subject. Section three, the family archive, is to do with objects and memory in relation to three generations of my family. Section four is the translation of research and theory into a design project for an existing site. Reflections and conclusions are dispersed throughout this research paper as they are identified. It is to be approached as a continuing process which is not intended to reach an end, and can be progressed long past the time that writing stops. It is against the idea there can be one final major solution and is to therefore to be understood as an ongoing project, with many conclusions.

List of Exercises Research Exercise I The people and the House Surface I A collection of Individuals Surface II A Settled Family Surface III A Constructed Family Surface IV An Uncertain Family Research Exercise Ib The Object and the House Pipkin Way Shaftesbury Road Kennilworth Avenue Wellington Square Research Exercise II: House, Home, Family and Flexibility Housing Home Flexibility Family Research Exercise III Isolating the Object Casting Erasure Cutting Design Exercise I Collaging the External Design Exercise II A Place to Play Design Exercise III A Place to Make Things

21 32

39 49

22 33 40 50

24 35 42 52

26 37 44

27 30 47

Research Exercise IV Case Studies: Robin Hood Gardens and Walter's Way Research Exercise IV b Robin Hood Gardens Theory and Ideas I Of the Community Theory and Ideas II Home Office and Enterprise Research Exercise V My Objects in My Grandfather's House Research Exercise VI Objects in My Parents' House Theory and Ideas III The Kitchen as a Place to Make things Research Exercise VII My Grandfather's Objects Theory and Ideas IV The Digital Research Exercise VIII Objects in My Grandfather's House Theory and Ideas V The Elderly Research Exercise IX Spaces of Memory and Imagination Theory and Ideas VI Children

53

54

61 63

66

68

73

78

80

82

84

86

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Introduction to Research Exercises I, II, and III

The following drawings are described together as they were done simultaneously on four

surfaces and should be viewed together. These pages should be referred back to for explanation

of Exercises I, II and III. Subsequent exercises are explained individually as each surface

explored its own route.

Research Exercise I The People and the House

I spoke to the inhabitants of four different houses in Oxford and noted down what they had said. It was not in the form of a questionnaire as that leaves questions closed. I believe it is important to let people have control over their answers. I wanted to know whether they felt at home and what they thought it was that made their house into a home. Common issues that came up were to do with ownership (of the property), unspoken ownership of different spaces, permanence, family and use of social spaces, ability to adapt the house to suit them and their way of living, closed and open doors, number of floors and openness of the house, public and private space, investment (emotional and financial) which seemed to be linked to the idea of permanence. This is text-based research and is presented as overlays to the images of Exercise II.

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Research Exercise Ib

The Object and the House

In this exercise I made visual recordings of houses that I visited. In using the conventions of plan

and section I have been able to create for myself objective, ethnographic data about houses to start to

develop a discourse around the subject. I am interested in the way that people have appropriated

space and made their house into a home.

Hill (1998) writes that “the principle drawings used by the architect, such as plans, sections and

elevations, have limited means with which to describe or consider the inhabitation of architecture.”

(p.20)

The use of photography in these exercises has begun to transform dry architectural data into a

representation of spaces that are appropriated and lived in. I went into each of these houses and

photographed their

internal walls. It also enabled me to question for myself, the merits of using the conventional

architectural tools of plan and elevation, to describe ‘home’ and the process of living.

The questions that I was interested in investigating in this exercise were to do with home as an

expression of self and how far the concept of home has been inherited from childhood. I also wanted

to know about how far the spaces within a home are linked to the relationships formed in families,

and what the role of the object is in the home.

17

Research Exercise II House, Home, Family and Flexibility I combined text and image, using quotations and my own findings from studies of houses. I found this very useful in ordering my reading and bringing different sources together. Each board focuses on one or more key text. It begins to relate my own findings to published sources.

Research Exercise III Isolating the Object

Using the same panels and drawings, the aim of this exercise is to isolate the relevant details. The panels each take on a method of investigation, of cutting, erasure, casting, and trace. It is particularly focusing on isolating the objects.

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Reflections

The People and the House There were a number of issues that were introduced when interviewing people about their houses. Financial Ownership and control - whether they could really be comfortable in a house owned and maintained by somebody else. Unspoken Ownership of Space - The way in which various people claim space for themselves and have unspoken ownership of it, often by populating it with objects. Permanence - Whether feeling ‘at home’ is a necessarily a concept linked to time. Control of creativity – Adapting and extending a house can be a way of claiming it and feeling at home. Some houses show more potential for adaptation than others. How the family functions in the space – In Shaftesbury Road there was the suggestion that the design of the internal spaces did influence how the family related to each other. Food and meals - In some households, meals were regularly shared, which was almost always an indication of a close community within the house. Digital technology and family relationships - In one house, it was suggested that the computer had sometimes got in the way of real social interaction and had influenced the way that the household related to each other.

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Reflections

The Object and the House

The detail of the spaces and the evidence of inhabitation was a useful tool to look at how

people use objects to inhabit and appropriate spaces in their homes. The absence of

people in the images was noted. It seemed to be ignoring the vital ingredient to a home

and needed some explanation and focus in order to read. House, Home, Family and Flexibility The images themselves did not say much about each of these headings. The presentation of these boards threw up the following questions: How are homes an expression of self ? How do people stamp their identity on their homes? How are we, as architects, designing homes that encourage healthy family relationships and are they flexible enough for people to stamp their own personalities onto? From this, it was suggested that it would be wise to critically select houses to analyse and to look at objects as a generator for design.

Aim for the next task: To select four methods to continue to work into the boards, being more specific about the focus.

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[ Surface I ] The People and the House : A Collection of Individuals – The Object and the House – Collage on Housing

- Isolating the Object: Casting - Collaging the External – A Place to Play

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A Collection of Individuals : Pipkin Way

This is a collection of individuals with no prior connections. They are a mixture of

workers and students. The one thing that connects them is their Christian faith.

The bedroom is ones own space. As strangers living together in a house, there is a sense

that the communal areas belong to no one in particular, and carry little trace of any

ownership, but that bedrooms are very much ones own property and therefore everything

that one owns is kept to that space.

Sam has an open door. Her room is always tidy. She is out most evenings. She is not

protective or private about her bedroom.

Jayne has a closed door. But is willing for it to be opened. She is generous with her

belongings, having come from a home with a sister and a brother, where things are shared.

She is close to her family.

Zoe has a closed door. The others would not go in there, and are wary of even knocking to

ask something. Zoe is very sociable but has her own relationships to pursue and is only a

temporary resident and so is not perhaps as invested in the house or relationships as the

others are.

Ellie has an open door (but is often embarrassed about the tidiness of her room so it is

sometimes closed) Ellie has brought her family home with her. She lines her walls with

books and paintings. A violin sits in the corner of the room. Art supplies spill from a

wicker carry-case. The pile of three or four 'books in progress' sit on the bedside table.

Running shoes lie ready to be used the next day.

They like to spend time together but it is often scheduled as each person has commitments

on different days of the week. It is quite rare that they are all in the house of an evening.

DWG 1 / Exercise I / The people and the house / A Collection of Individuals

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DWG 2 / Exercise Ib / The object and the house / Pipkin Way

DWG 3 / Exercise II / Housing / Pipkin Way

Theme : Housing

This is a board that is based around the film, The Dilapidated Dwelling (2000). The film, by Patrick Keiller describes houses in Britain as some of the most dilapidated in Western Europe. There is little that has changed in the concept and design of housing in the UK for many years, but our way of living – especially with digital media – has changed drastically. Digital media enables an increasing opportunity to work from home as there is no longer a pressing need for spatial presence with the use of cyber and online communication. The film raises the issues of Capitalism and the domestic, highlighting a conflict between the two, or more accurately, the “inability of modern Capitalism to cope with the domestic in some way.” The individualism and mobility associated with modernity is not comfortable with the notion of the family. The highly personal nature of the home and the domestic is the very antithesis of Capitalism’s treatment of the masses. Popular opinion and the media speak increasingly about a housing crisis in Britain, involving a shortage of accommodation for a growing population. Furthermore, write Borer and Harris, “even those with homes are often trapped in inadequate or sub-standard housing.” The crisis has reached “catastrophic proportions” in both scale and severity. Not only is it unpleasant and psychologically damaging but bad housing can be linked to poor health, especially in children and the elderly. The current rate of replacement of houses is such that those built today would need to last 4000 years. (Borer, P. and Harris, C., 1997, p.10). Sustainability is an issue that is high on the political and social agenda in Britain. Energy-inefficient houses are not only costly and uncomfortable but contribute to levels of pollution. With existing dwellings emitting “more greenhouse gases than either motor vehicles or industry” (Dilapidated Dwelling, 2000) despite many not being adequately heated, there is further fuel to the argument for more and better housing.

Questions Raised How do we design houses for the future? How should modern capitalism cope with the domestic?

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Research Exercise III Isolating the Object: Casting On this board I used the method of casting. It was a way of building a surface on the panel. The other boards involve removing information. This board is being added to. The intent was to build up the walls to create a more three-dimensional representation of space. It was not as successful as the others.

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DWG 4 / Exercise III / Isolating the Objects / Casting

Design Exercise I

Collaging the External

The panel is a collage of different architectures, related to home. It is a mixture of a staircase from

Walter's Way, on top of ‘streets in the sky’ from Robin Hood Gardens (see Exercise IV) and a gate from

my grandfather's garden. These are three very different approaches to home and building housing.

The panel is about the external. It is about entrance, and visible, communal space. The front garden has

been a feature of British housing for many years and there is an extent to which the fronts of people’s

houses reveal something about them.

The porch, or veranda, popular in American housing, represents a space that is both private and communal.

It is an ambiguous space, neither fully outside, nor fully inside the house. The uses of the porch have often

been to do with “casual interaction among people, indicating that the front porch's social function is as

important as its architectural definition.” (Busch, 1999, 104-105)

The veranda is not concerned with efficient use of space; it is not used all year round, but is defined by

season and weather. Busch (1999) argues that there is a place for “these margins of a house that are used

only for a few months each year.”(Busch, 1999, 104-105)

I was interested to see what would happen when images and objects from a traditional, detached, family

house in rural Isle of Wight, were juxtaposed with the functionalist, anonymous, repetition of the flats of

Robin Hood Gardens in urban London. I found that it had already been done. The ornate ironwork from

the gate to my grandfather’s garden is replicated in the bars that protect windows at Robin Hood Gardens,

potted plants fill the spaces and corners of the streets, balconies are decorated, albeit roughly, with

camouflage netting.

The traditional image of ‘home’ seems to be ingrained into the British psyche. Despite being far from the

setting of the English country garden, the objects of this transformed urban environment hint at a

yearning for personal space and a wish to beautify and express.

Hill (1998) writes that “Functionalism supposes that only the quantifiable is real. It disregards ‘irrational’

actions and focuses only on actions deemed to be ‘useful’.” (Hill, 1998, p.22) The occupation of space with

plants and garden chairs is not functional. It is not efficient or 'useful' and yet it seems to be part of human

nature to want to decorate and create, to enjoy and relax.

Freedom to create is important. The built environment, if it is to be enjoyed, must allow for this

control and expression.

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DWG 5 / Design Exercise I / Collaging the External

DWG 6 / Design Exercise II / A Place to Play

Design Exercise II

A Place to Play

This is an idea for a strategy that embraces the ideas of play and enjoyment. It take a space previously used for car parking and turns it into a climbing frame and a place to hide. It is about the residents of the houses taking ownership of the space.

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[ Surface II ] The People and the House : A Settled Family – The Object and the House – Collage on Home -

Isolating the Object: Erasure

31

A Settled Family : Shaftesbury Road

The family have been in this house for 30 years. This is the only home that the children (now grown

up) have ever known. It is a 3-storey Victorian house. This is a family with a lot of interests and it is

reflected in their belongings. They are not a tidy family. They are more interested in doing things

than putting on a presentable face. Bedrooms are used to pursue hobbies, not seeing the need or

efficiency in putting everything away when finished for the day. Downstairs is more 'presentable' for

guests, kept so by Mum. This family is rarely alone in the house. There are usually others staying.

Sometimes friends or family, sometimes short-term lodgers, students or, on one occasion, a man who

had nowhere else to go. The separation of the individual rooms and the closed doors make this

possible. Children's bedrooms change hands periodically to suit who is staying in the house at the

time. On some occasions there are people sleeping in every room but the bathrooms. However, each

individual has his or her private space in which to pursue his/her interests. Dad has many interests –

and has three rooms dedicated to them – study (with books), little room (for electronics and

computers), conservatory (for DIY), even partly dining room (for music.) Interests have definitely

been passed onto the children. The boys' rooms are littered with 'stuff'. Each have their own piano

keyboard, Tim reads many books, Alex records and composes music on various instruments and

designs websites. Pin boards are full with photos of childhood, bits of paper. The upstairs room is

covered with pin ups of design projects, exhibition pieces and photographs. The retreat to bedrooms

is not necessarily an anti-social act. There is a lot of social interaction that takes place behind closed

doors. Alex, for example, is always in contact with his friends on the computer and often goes out in

the evenings. The dining room is used for meals when there are guests. More commonly, the kitchen

table is used. The family eat together every day. Even the others living in the house are included in

the meal time. It is a time of catching up and touching base. This is a family with a lot of friends.

They are just not necessarily friends with each other. And friends of each do not often mix with the

others. Mum is often chaotic in the way that she thinks but is tidy in the way that she looks after the

house. She thinks back to her childhood when the home was messy and turbulent. Maybe she is

reacting against this with the cleanliness of the ground floor of the house. The parents 'own' the

ground floor. Whilst the children go to their bedrooms for the evenings, the parents tend to just use

their bedroom for sleeping. It is not a space stamped with their personalities and interests as the

other bedrooms are. This is a house that is very much 'lived in.' Doors are quite often closed in this

house. To go into somebody's bedroom, it is essential to knock. The bedroom is a sanctuary. Mum

never liked this house as a family home. She thinks it is not conducive to close family relationships.

She doesn't like the separation that so many floors provide. She always regrets allowing the children

to have computers in their rooms as it was possible for them to disappear upstairs and not be seen

until dinner time, especially those on the upper floors. It was not possible to monitor use of the

computer. She also feels that the house is not easy for cleaning purposes. There is a lot of space to

clean and it is split into many levels.

DWG 7 / Exercise I / The people and the house / A Settled Family

DWG 8 / Exercise Ib / The object and the house / Shaftesbury Road

DWG 9 / Exercise II / Home / Shaftesbury Road

Home On this board I looked at ideas of home, based on two books. Home is a part of us all and an extension of ourselves, a centre of stability, “a place to which one withdraws and from which one ventures forth.” (Blunt and Dowling, 2006, P.6). Blunt and Dowling, (2006) explain ideas of home from the perspective of humanist geographers who “privilege an idea of home as grounding of identity, an essential place.” It is clear that ‘home’ is a site, but is not solely a house. It is combined with a set of feelings that are connected to that physical place. Humanist georgraphers would go further and say that home is “much more than a house, and much more than feelings of attachment to particular places and people. Home is hearth, an anchoring point through which human beings are centred.” (Blunt and Dowling, 2006, P.6) If home is a special relationship between people and their environment, through which they make sense of their world, our home lives can be deeply influential in how we develop as a child and how we view home and society as an adult. The home in Britain can be a very private and personal place. Rivers writes:

“There is a brief time at dusk when rooms are lit and you can see, uninvited, into other people’s lives. People observed in the rooms they have made have a peculiar poignancy. See how often they come and go attending to matters out of sight, transferring from room to room, those discreet boxes dedicated to aspects of living, those compartments of their lives. They lounge, eat, work, receive, cook, sleep, love, bathe, defecate, and each function, each zone within the home, is separated by breeze block partitions and thin doors, always closing.” (Rivers, 1992)

Since home is so important to us, and we are spending more and more time there, it seems advisable that architects should think very carefully about how houses, the site of home, are designed.

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DWG 10 / Exercise III / Isolating the Object / Erasure

Research Exercise III Isolating the Object: Erasure On this board I used the method of erasure, using white paint to cover over the irrelevant details (as regards this task) and to reveal the objects in the house. It was found to be a successful method of working.

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[ Surface III ] The People and the House: A Constructed Family – The Object and the House – Collage on Flexibility -

Isolating the Object: Cutting – A Place to Make Things

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A Constructed Family : Kennilworth Avenue

This is a house of students, mimicking the life of a family.

They are not related by blood but have known eachother

for years and so are very comfortable with one another.

They have open doors and a large open social space.

They share their belongings and help eachother. They

are the ones that each will turn to in difficulty. This

seems to be a rare occurrence in student living. But it has

taken time to build these relationships.

Three of them cook and eat together every day. The one

who doesn't join them is somewhat on the fringe and not

part of the group in the same way. He spends a large

proportion of his time talking to people online. In this

case, it seems to come at the expense of physical

relationships. Interacting with people who are physically

present all the time differs to being able to switch people

on and off.

DWG 11 / Exercise I / The people and the house / A Constructed Family

DWG 12 / Exercise Ib / The object and the house / Kennilworth Avenue

DWG 13 / Exercise II/ Flexibility / Kennilworth Avenue

Flexibility

Houses are generally static elements however, the requirements of people change and adapt over time. They can be practical issues, such as expanding families or the onset of old age, demographic, economic or environmental, such as responding to climate change. There is an argument for the design of housing that reflects these changing needs and patterns. Till and Schneider (2007) draw a distinction between ‘flexible’ and ‘adaptable’ housing, as well as between ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ approaches to designing flexible housing. Flexible housing is often thought of as being housing that physically moves to adapt to the user’s requirements from day to day, such as the Schroeder House in Utrecht where moveable walls can transform spaces within. Flexible housing can also refer to a house such as the Eames’ House which “had to efface itself in favour of the creative choices made by its occupant.” It is about “social adaptability and not about physical flexibility”, a house that acts as a “host” and a “shock absorber, there to soak up the dynamics of living.” (Schneider and Till, 2007, p.6) Another principle in the discussion of flexible housing is the potential of houses for addition, where the user is allowed a control over their living space. It asks the architect to take the role of the facilitator rather than the that of determiner.

Questions Raised If the preference is for user-participation, how far does the role of the architect extend? How do we design houses that can endure the tests of time?

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DWG 14 / Exercise III / Isolating the Object / Cutting

Research Exercise III Isolating the Object: Cutting I have used the method of cutting away at the image and the board to eradicate what is on the surface and reveal what is beneath. It is an interesting way of working and I am hoping to use this further in my subsequent work. It is also a way of isolating the object.

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DWG 16 / A Space Between

DWG 16 / Design Exercise III / A Place to Make Things

Design Exercise III

A Place to Make Things

This is an idea for a strategy that involves giving some extra space to residents to double the size

of their current outdoor space, that they can use however they like.

In this case it is a workshop, a place to make things.

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[ Surface IV ] The People and the House : An Uncertain Family – The Object and the House – Collage on Family – Case

Studies: Robin Hood Gardens and Walter’s Way – Robin Hood Gardens – Background on Walter’s Way

– Reflections – Of the Community – Of the Home Office and Enterprise

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An Uncertain Family : Wellington Square

The family are new to this house. They have been in the house for 6 months but were

in their previous home for 10 years. Currently living in the house are Sarah, who has

returned after university, and her parents. The sisters live in this house for university

holidays. At the time that I visited, the house was empty. It felt big and somewhat

cold. The ceilings were very high. Mum does not feel at home here. There are many

issues on a practical level. The house is owned by Oxford University and cleaned and

maintained by them. They do not know how long they will be in this house as they

are currently looking for another one. They seem unsure whether to invest their

energies and love in this house or to wait for somewhere else. They do not have all of

their belongings from the old house in this one. Much of it is still in storage. They

seem to be a family in limbo, waiting for something. The house has old servant’s

bells. We suspect that the family would have lived on the middle floors, leaving the

basement kitchen and attic rooms for the servants. Bedrooms are large and spread

out. Corridors are closed off. This family are used to living on fewer levels with more

open plan spaces. This house is divided into rooms and corridors. The rooms

themselves are large and spacious. They are a close family but would not necessarily

associate themselves with this house. The house is sometimes full with people. If the

sisters are all home, and the boyfriends and the parents, there are no spare rooms. It

is easy for people to live in this house and not see eachother. Most of the other houses

in this square are converted into flats or offices.It seems that sometimes 'home' can be

a decision. One can decide to invest their love and attach emotions to a place.

Sometimes this can be to do with the objects that are in our homes. If we have

belongings in many different places, sometimes none of those places feel like home.

'Home' also seems to be a temporal concept. If we know we are going to be

somewhere for a substantial length of time, we can begin to make it into a home. If

we know we are not, sometimes we will hold back. 'Home' in this country can be to

do with ownership of a property, which connects to the temporal issue. It seems

difficult to feel at home in a rented property, especially if we are not allowed to make

any changes to it or adapt it to our own ideas of what home should be

DWG 17 / Exercise I / The people and the house / An Uncertain Family

DWG 18 / Exercise Ib / The Object and the house / Wellington Square

DWG 19 / Exercise II / Family

Family

This board is, graphically, a combination of the houses that I had photographed and drawn. The text is descriptive of the houses shown from my own subjective readings but some of it begins to think about how 'family' relates to 'object.' Daniel Miller (2008, p.1) states that “In many ways...usually the closer our relationships are with objects, the closer they are with people” For most people, home is connected to family. The space that we grow up in has a lasting effect on our view of home as adults. Our families are central to our development. The family is often in the media, with tales of ‘broken Britain’, and the concern about whether we are raising the next generation appropriately. There is an increase in divorce rates and childbearing outside of marriage which means that the shape of the family is changing. The family is an institution “much discussed; much worried over,” about which there is “a good deal of contradictory feeling.” (Leonard and Hood-Williams, 1988, p.1) Whatever our opinion on the state of the family, it is clear that it is not only the site of private and personal decisions, but also of those that concern society as a whole. (Cherlin, 1996,) Raising children and taking care of the elderly are some of the primary activities that families undertake, and there is anxiety about the adequacy of their care. Trends in family living have most certainly changed over the past 100 years. It would appear that there has been a shift from a multi-generational family to more nuclear and single living. Many houses that were designed to accommodate a large, multi-generational family have been changed and adapted. Many have been split into flats and rooms are used quite differently to how they were intended to be, often at the expense of social spaces. (Taylor, 2011) Similarly, as housing costs have risen, smaller houses have been extended and adapted in various ways to accommodate more people. A recent trend, researched in the USA is in the return to a more multi-generational family set-up, where the economic climate has meant that young people can no longer afford their own houses and are returning to live at their parental home. It is a familiar story for young people in the UK. (Taylor, 2012) In my own experience, the family as a unit is continually in a state of flux. Families grow and shrink, their needs change, children leave and relationships break down. Most houses are designed as static units. As previously mentioned in the studies of flexible housing, there is an argument for houses to be more flexible to adapt to changing needs and requirements.

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Research Exercise IV Case Studies : Robin Hood Gardens and Walter’s Way This study is looking outside of my own experience towards architecture that has been designed and built. It involves two panels as a study of The Smithsons’ Robin Hood Gardens in London and Walter Segal’s self-build houses in Lewisham, London. These are two examples of very different approaches to designing dwellings. The first is to do with repetition and people fitting into preconceived conditions of living. The second is where people are given the opportunity to choose how their dwellings should be to reflect their way of living.

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Research Exercise IVa

Robin Hood Gardens

Robin Hood Gardens is a council estate in the deprived area of Poplar in London. It was built by the Smithsons in the 1970s. Notable design concepts include creating London streets in a new form, one on top of another, also known as ‘streets in the sky.’ It is supposed to be a neutral background from which one looks out, over the grass or over the city. (Glancy, 2009) When I visited, I photographed things that I considered to be of note.

Chairs and plants in the street – The residents do not have a garden of their own, though they do

have the big park in the middle. There are signs of care and a wish to make what they can of

what they have. The chairs in the ‘streets’ are almost continental in their intention. The views

from that point are exciting.

Walking past, smells of cooking waft through the air. Peering in the windows, kitchens are in

use.

The Smithsons’ intention of it being a place to look out from seems to be successful. Views across

London are impressive. There is a strange juxtaposition of some of the poorest housing in

London in Tower Hamlets, and the wealth and affluence of Canary Wharf.

Community – In The Guardian documentary Is London's Robin Hood Gardens an architectural

masterpiece? Glancy interviews some of the residents of Robin Hood Gardens. Some love the

place, some hate it. The residents that were interviewed spoke about their love of the community

there, but also about the unsuitability for growing families. There is no opportunity to extend or

adapt. Instead of the house suiting the residents, the residents have to suit the house or move

elsewhere. (Glancy, 2009)

The estate is surrounded by roads and cut off from amenities although there is a school nearby.

The environment feels quite brutal and threatening, entering as an outsider. The concrete does

not seem to have aged well. It looks dirty and streaked.

The garden looks well-kept but not used. This may depend on the time of day and year. When I

visited, it was 2pm on a damp winter’s day. Much of the building looks uncared for, but there are

54

occasional snapshots of humanity and inhabitation. Washing hangs out on balconies, objects are

visible piled up against windows, camouflage netting hangs from the balcony of one flat, and

floral curtains adorn the windows. Some residents are less caring of their space. Mattresses

hang over a balcony, graffiti adorns a wall, and ground floor windows are smashed and boarded

up.

The ‘streets in the sky’ show more sign of human habitation. They feel friendlier. Children’s

bikes are leant up against the walls, pot plants inhabit corners, and window boxes hang outside.

It feels safer than a normal London Street. It is not as much passed through. There is a feeling

that if you knew your neighbours then it would be a relatively safe place. There is no reason for

people to use these streets unless they live there. They are not passed through by everyone and

therefore there might be a sort of accountability.

There is a more sinister edge to the seemingly domestic feel of the streets. Many of the doors

and windows are protected by bars. It is a testament to the sensibilities of the residents though,

that even these are infused with the domestic. The decorative pattern of bars suggests the

country garden. It is uncannily similar to the gate to my grandfather’s house. (See DWG 29.)

The stairwells feel like the most threatening places, narrow, dark and uninviting. Windows are

daubed with graffiti and, not being overlooked by people, the place invites illegal activity.

Giving plots of land to some of the residents that they can use to grow plants is a new initiative.

They are labelled with the numbers of the flats that they belong to. There is perhaps a

recognition here that there is no opportunity for creativity and ownership of outdoor space in this

estate.

The flats are designed to Parker Morris space standards. They are reasonably sized and some

are maisonettes.

Reflections

Despite having a seemingly alienating appearance, people have used their own devices to turn

what they have been given into personally reflective and communal spaces. Where communal

spaces have been designed in, there is potential for appropriation, although there is a tendency for

un owned spaces to be abandoned and misused.

55

The residents do not have a garden of their own, though they do have the big park in the middle. There are signs of care and a wish to make what they can of what they have. The chairs are almost continental in their intention. The views from that point are exciting.

Views across London are

impressive, with a strange

juxtaposition of some of the

poorest housing in London in

Tower Hamlets, and the

wealth and affluence of

Canary Wharf.

The environment feels quite brutal and threatening, entering as an outsider. The concrete does not seem to have aged well. It looks dirty and streaked.

As a new initiative, plots of land are assigned to some of the residents. They are labelled with the numbers of the flats that they belong to.

Many of the doors and windows are protected by bars. Even these however, are infused with the domestic. The decorative pattern of bars is uncannily similar to the gate to my grandfather’s house.

Pot plants inhabit corners, and window boxes hang outside.

Pot plants inhabit corners, and window boxes hang outside

The stairwells are the most threatening place, narrow, dark and uninviting. Windows are daubed with graffiti and, not being overlooked by people, the place invites illegal activity.

Some residents are less

caring of their space.

Mattresses hang over a

balcony, windows are

smashed and boarded

up.

People want to take

ownership of the

exterior space.

Spaces in between

are inhabited with

people’s belongings

DWG 20 / Exercise IVa / Robin Hood Gardens / A Photographic Account

Exercise IVa / Robin Hood Gardens / Isolating the Relevent

Research Exercise IVb

Background on Walter’s Way The houses in Walter's Way were built between 1984-7 by those on the Council waiting list for

housing. Segal was interested in creating a 'flexible and affordable house design that anyone could

build for themselves.' Walter's Way is on a sloping site in Lewisham, covered in trees, a site that

was owned by the council and not easy to build on. The plan was to give to those on the council's

waiting list for houses, the opportunity to build their own. The Segal method utilised timber frames

with modular dimensions and other materials in standard sizes to increase efficiency and potential

for enlargements and alterations. Segal houses minimise the use of 'wet' trades. (Ward, year

unknown)

The UK, in comparison to many other European countries and the USA, where half of new homes

are built by their owner, has not embraced self-build housing in general. Around a fifth of British

homes are custom-built. With Britain facing a housing crisis, government plans outline an

intention for “the number of self or custom-built homes to double over the next decade”,

lending£30 million to help support this. (Brignall, 2011)

Impressions

There is not much that can be deduced about the Segal houses from the exterior. They are private.

It is a quiet time of day and there is no activity in the close. There are signs of inhabitation in the

bicycles locked in the front garden. The front areas are open to the close and mostly used as

driveways, although some hold planting and benches. The sloping nature of the site allows little

space for children to play at the front, despite the relative safety from traffic and strangers. It is

signposted as a Private Road. I felt like an intruder by even being in the area.

There is the possibility for a freedom of expression and creativity in these houses that is not possible

in many estates. On the ground floor of one house is a workshop area with an open door. These

houses are not neat. They are a mish-mash of materials, colours and methods of construction. They

are not pretty from the outside. Whether their original builders still live there or not, is unknown.

From the community noticeboard, it is suggested that there is still a functioning community.

Despite being self-built, there is little about the houses that seems to reveal anything of the owners'

personalities. There are no visible objects and houses are impermeable to view from outside.

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DWG 21 / Exercise IVa / Walter’s Way/ A Photographic Account

Reflections

Walter’s Way and Robin Hood Gardens

Self-build housing could be something that becomes common in Britain, as in America and on the

continent. With government plans to lend £30 million to self-builders to help support the growing

market and to loosen planning laws, this be the future for housing. The disadvantages of self-build

housing is that they are not always designed well, and for all the appearance of being individual and

custom-made, could transpire to be a pastiche and so user-specific that they wouldn’t work for anybody else

who may subsequently move in.

The real strength of the Segal houses is their opportunity for human creativity, of making a house their

own by constructing it themselves, and the chance to extend and adapt to the changing needs of the users.

The Robin Hood Gardens flats do not give that opportunity. There is little provision for extension, and

there is no ownership of external space, other than that which people have claimed for their own. The real

potential of the Robin Hood Gardens estate is where communal space is designed in. This is a very

Modernist idea.

A recent survey by the RIBA displayed in the 'A Place to Call Home' exhibition at Portland Place, found

that the top requirement for home buyers was the provision of outside space, followed by size of rooms and

proximity of services. In looking at Robin Hood Gardens it would seem that although communal outside

space is appreciated, there is also a desire for private outside space. Robin Hood Gardens has communal

space, the Segal houses have private, individualistic space. If as Busch (1999) asserts, ‘home’, requires a

place to make things, private and necessary sanctuary, and space for nourishment and community, both

these estates are missing at least one.

Conclusions

People are more likely to take care of their homes and neighbourhoods when they feel connected to

them. If we are constantly having to move from our houses because they are too rigid to adapt to

our changing needs, then how can we build community, belonging and attachment to place?

People are, by nature, creative, and freedom to create is important. There is an ingenuity to the way

that people inhabit space. The built environment, if it is to be enjoyed, must allow for this control

and expression. There is an extent to which it doesn’t really matter what the architect does, as

long as it allows the user to appropriate it easily.

External space is important. Modernism understood this. With more and more houses being built,

space is becoming tight, but it is clear that desire communal space and private space.

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Theory and Ideas I Of the Community The space of the home, is related to the space of community, at different scales. There is the community of the family, the neighbourhood and the city. Aldo Van Eyck placed importance in the idea of community and human relationships.

Aldo Van Eyck and an architecture of Community Van Eyck and the Humanists saw, as the aftermath of postwar reconstruction, that architecture had departed from being a place of human interaction and dialogue and had become purely functional. They were “committed to replacing the mechanistic doctrines of the postwar reconstruction with a humanist architecture.” (Lefaivre and Tzonis, 1999, p.2) There was a problem to be addressed in the “alienated postwar mass-society, cut off from human ties.” As a result, Van Eyck’s architecture stems from a belief that people and community are important. He states that “Whatever space and time mean, place and occasion mean more!” (Lefaivre and Tzonis, 1999, p.2) Much of Van Eyck’s work is inspired by childhood. He designed playgrounds to occupy empty plots in the city and an orphanage. Lefaivre and Tzonis (1999) suggest that it is hope that was the attraction for Van Eyck, together with “the child’s restlessness and resistance to a world easily reduced to rules.” He believed that an adult’s city ought to remain a city for the child, “built out of chaos and dreams.” Echoing Alberti with the motto ‘a house is a tiny city, a city a huge house’, Van Eyck believed that the human environment should be “conceived at any scale as a ‘household’ and a community”

The Site specific Van Eyck’s playgrounds in the city, took empty sites between buildings or anywhere that had no prescribed use and transformed them into areas for children to play. The principle of the ‘inbetween’ that Van Eyck was guided by was primarily concerned with “designing buildings and places as conditions enhancing and sustaining dialogue between humans” (Lefaivre and Tzonis, 1999, p.66) It was an architecture of community and of interaction. The empty lots were not thought of as parts of an ideal overall plan, as Le Corbusier would have advocated but as “objects interwoven with a context, immersed in a particular, unique situation.” p.52 To an extent this is an architecture of the object. In placing a slide into an undefined space in the city, it is transformed into a playground. It is also an architecture of the site specific. The spaces are characterised by the particular, not the general. The playgrounds are small-scale interventions, on a citywide scale. (Lefaivre and Tzonis, 1999, p.52)

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Community Loss

Despite the Humanists’ return to an architecture of community and human dialogue, neighbourhood community is no longer so active. With the improvement in communication and transport, Van Eyck’s ideas of facilitating encounters might not be possible. Allan (1985) notes that

“Undoubtedly the global process we term ‘industrialisation’ has decreased our dependence on immediate neighbours. With urbanisation, the range of people available to provide services for us is nowhere near as restricted as it was previously.” (Allan, 1985, p.76)

There is an argument that communities were built out of necessity. We had to rely on those around us because there was no other alternative. Advances in communication and transport mean that now it is more possible to maintain social relationships over a distance, whether it be across the town, or across the world. We are less dependent now on services in our immediate locality because transport allows us to leave it more readily and frequently. The sociologist, Allan (1985, p.76), comments that adult males are likely to be less reliant on local ties than housewives, the elderly and the young, especially in the working classes. Children and adolescents “are likely to depend more on the immediate area for much of their social life.” With more people than ever working from home, there is an increasing call for local facilities for social interaction and recreation during the working day. There is also an aspect of sustainability to this. The less we have to travel to reach our friends and services, the less impact we are having on the environment.

Conclusions

Young people, old people and housewives, who rely heavily on local ties, make up a large proportion of the wider population. If they are less able to travel distances for services and social contacts, then surely there should be local provision of these facilities. If it is a valid proposal that a city should be like a large house, then perhaps these community facilities should be based on Busch’s realms of home.

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Theory and Ideas II Home Office and Enterprise With the space of work and the space of home becoming merged through the use of digital media, it is perhaps useful to consider how this fits with the concept of home and community. Cyber communication enables an increasing opportunity to work from home as there is no longer a pressing need for spatial presence. It has been suggested that the institution of the workplace can be de-humanising in some ways, especially in big businesses. Governed by strict schedules, workers often have very little control over how time is spent and managed. Most workplaces establish “rules of behaviour and dress codes – implicit or explicit – at home we can give free reign to our idiosyncrasies.” (Busch, 1999, p.85). At home we can be more 'ourselves.' The philosopher, Karl Marx proposes a theory about the alienation of labour, since the industrial revolution, and the disconnection of the worker from the “object he produces because it is owned and disposed of by another, the capitalist.” (Ollman, 1996, p143) Marx believed that the worker has a lack of control over the process of production with no influence over the conditions in which he works, how it is organized and how it affects him mentally and physically. (Fischer, 1996, p.327) The worker is reduced to a machine, with no space for personality. The home office begins to return the worker to a human environment, away from the institution of the work place. According to a recent study, “one in three Americans now works at home, at least part of the time” (Busch, 1999, p.81). This may be true for the UK as well. It seems that we are going to be spending more and more time at home, which increases the significance of having good housing and facilities in neighbourhoods. With the economic climate as it is, with a growing number of unemployed, there is a unique opportunity for enterprise and home-based business. The Bromley By Bow Centre, located in one of the most deprived areas in London, has defined the term social enterprise. The centre aims to provide good community facilities, but also has an appreciation of the arts and the diversity of skills and crafts that are known by the local community. At the centre, local people are asked to teach skills, often to do with arts and creativity, in return for rent-free workshops, with a view to creating opportunity for business. (“Social Enterprise at the Bromley By Bow Centre”)

It is important to feel valued and useful and connected to what we are doing and why we are doing it. When we are disconnected, out of control and alienated from our work, it can produce an apathy which might lead to depression and despair. The task of making can help to restore satisfaction in our work, as can the control that one has in being self-employed or working from home. A place to make things is one of Busch’s realms of home. If the place of work is increasingly at home, perhaps the place of work could also be a place to make things, and a private and necessary sanctuary, slightly away from the heart of the home.

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[ My Family Archive ] Introduction to Method "We live today in a world of ever more stuff - what sometimes seems a deluge of goods

and shopping. We tend to assume that this has two results: that we are more

superficial, and that we are more materialistic, our relationships to things coming at the expense of our relationships to people. We make such assumptions, we speak in clichés, but we have rarely tried to put these assumptions to the test. By the time you finish this

book, you will discover that, in many ways, the opposite is true; that possessions often remain profound and usually the closer our relationships are with objects, the closer our relationships are with people.“ (Miller, 2008, p.1)

If the object is an expression of self, of memories and significance, that speaks about relationships to people, as Daniel Miller asserts, perhaps it would be interesting to begin to look at the object as a generator for design. This is the beginnings of a collection of meaningful objects from three generations of home. My Grandfather's house, my Father's house, and my own house. It is a personal, domestic study, which is done with the intention of bringing lessons and ideas to a larger scale design project. The use of the grid of photos is a way of laying out information to be analysed, not privileging any particular item. In this case, it is a way of looking objectively at subjective information and regularising it in order to make judgements about its relevance. I am using the grid to archive items from the three specified houses, that have meaning attached to them.

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[ Surface V ] My Objects in My Grandfather’s House – Objects in My Parents’ House – Reflections – Of The Kitchen as

a Place to Make Things – The Farm Project

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Research Exercise V

My Objects in My Grandfather’s House This is a series of images that connect me and my memories to my grandfather’s house. It is a very personal, subjective analysis. There are stories connected with the objects pictured. Memories of places that we experience as a child often stay with us and influence our views of that place in the present. Miller speaks about attachment to objects as being connected to attachment to people. It might be suggested that the objects without the context that they are seen in, lose some of their potency. Attachment to objects is stepping away from the functionality of Modernism and embracing the subjective and the personality of humans.

Action: As a result of this exercise, I am going to use these texts to make spatial representations.

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DWG 22 / Exercise V / The Archive / My Objects in My Grandfather’s House

My Grandfather always used to

warn us about the cracks in the

ground after a dry season. I

imagined great fissures and chasms

to fall into and be swallowed up

The view of this gate as a

child held for me the heights

of joy at the prospect of

holiday and play and fun.

And the depths of despair at

having to leave.

When we were children, we built castles with the

sofa cushions. We gathered around this sofa for

family photographs. We sit and drink tea and eat

cake when we get together. It all takes place

around this sofa and these chairs.

My Grandfather always

asks if we have enough

light to read by and insists

on turning on all the lights

making tea for everyone

Research Exercise VI

Objects in My Parent’s House

Akiko Busch (1999) writes about areas in the house where the bedroom, the kitchen and the basement

reflect “three basic realms of home: the private and necessary sanctuary, the place of nourishment and

community, the area where things get made.” She asserts that if the places where we live

“accommodate these three very different human activities, it might be called home.”

This collage is looking at objects in my parents’ house, with the focus being on these three realms.

Many of the objects shown are about creativity and making. There are objects related to music, art

and building things. My father is frequently adding to the house, or adapting spaces. He recently

built a conservatory and reopened the fireplaces that had been boarded up.

This house lends itself to being extended and adapted. It is a Victorian terraced house, with space at

the back for addition and adaptation.

There is a room at the very top of the house that contains my father’s electronics equipment. It is a

small room lined with shelves of small components with wires and soldering irons hanging from nails

in the wall. This is where my father pursues his hobby in peace, away from the hustle and bustle of the

rest of the house. Where the kitchen is the hub of activity, the upstairs room is a sanctuary.

The objects in the kitchen are related to making things, to cooking and cups of tea. Social activities in

my parents’ house generally centre around food. Whoever is in the house is expected to join with

everyone for dinner most days, and during the day are invited to join for lunch. The kitchen is the

realm of my mother, the creativity there being in baking and culinary skill. When I am at home, I like

to help my mother prepare food and bake cakes. I have done this from when I was a child. I enjoy

spending time with my mother in the kitchen sharing an activity and talking. The kitchen, when my

mother is in the house, is where things happen.

Music is an activity that is both creative (making things) and communal. When all of the family are at

home, there is often an opportunity to get together and play music.

When my parents bought this house, the mortgage was around three times my father’s annual income.

It was run-down and barely inhabitable. My parents have invested time and money in it and are

regularly decorating and adapting spaces to suit them.

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DWG 23 / Exercise VI / The Archive / Objects in My Father’s House

Reflections

I am intrigued by the concept of Busch’s three realms of home. I am concluding however, that

these are not necessarily mutually exclusive. They can overlap, as I have discovered by looking

at my parents’ household. Making things can certainly be a social and communal activity, and

equally can be a private activity, a means of relaxation and escape from other people.

Questions thrown up Do houses allow for the three realms of home? Do we have places of privacy and sanctuary,

nourishment and community and space to make things?

Ownership – People like to express themselves in their houses/homes. Perhaps there something

about the culture of ownership that allows a freedom of creativity that is not possible with rented

accommodation.

There is a sense in which people are unwillingly to invest themselves, emotionally and

financially, in a house that they don’t own, that they may not stay in. Perhaps this is reflected in

relationships with neighbours and community. Is there a way in which architecture can

encourage a feeling of ownership?

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DWG 24 / Exercise VI / The Archive / Objects in My Father’s House II

[Video: My mother in the kitchen]

Theory and Ideas III The Kitchen as a Place to Make Things The previous collage (DWG 24 / Exercise VI / The Archive / Objects in My Father’s House II) speaks about the kitchen as a place to make things, be it a social activity or a solitary one. My mother’s kitchen, in a Victorian terraced house, is at the back, small and cut off from other rooms. The work surfaces allow space for storage and for preparing food, but it is not an easy social space. In the British home, the kitchen has a rich history. It has occupied many different levels of importance and has often been a reflection of cultural thinking and ideas of the time. Before the Victorian period, the kitchen had been the centre of the home, the place of nourishment and community and the centre of warmth. The Victorians reduced the status of the kitchen to that of a service area. It was kept away from the rest of the house so that the “vulgar and inappropriate smells” would not spread to the more genteel areas. In the mid nineteenth century, the work surfaces and drawers of the laboratory kitchen were introduced, with the realisation that preparing and storing food were different tasks requiring different materials. The kitchen was tidied up. The rationalisation of labour in the kitchen during the Modernist era made it more efficient and simple. Cooking and housework were seen to be undesirable, unglamourous tasks, to be performed as quickly as possible. Processed foods were seen as a luxury and new appliances mechanised domestic chores to “liberate housewives from unwanted domestic labour.” (Busch, 1999, p.46) The mass-produced, standardised, Frankfurt Kitchen designed by Grete Schutte-Lihotzky in 1927 was applying the scientific management of labour to the production of architecture. She used the analysis of the tasks performed in the kitchen “in order to eradicate unnecessary labour and enable each function to be carried out with the minimum effort and in the minimum space.” The focus was on efficiency and speed rather than enjoyment. (Hill, 1998, p.22) The perception of the kitchen now seems to be changing. As a culture that is constantly on-the-go, the kitchen is increasingly seen as a place to “find some balance to the acceleration in which we are invested elsewhere.” The rationalisation of labour aimed to cut down the effort and time taken to prepare food. Now, it could be suggested that we are "willingly giving ourselves over to lengthy and laborious rituals of food preparation,” admittedly with the help of our tools. Cooking is viewed as a sophisticated skill, therapeutic and personally rewarding.

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“One of the things that I love to do when I go home to my

parents' house is to bake in the kitchen with my mother. I have done this from when I was a

child. The kitchen, when my mother is in the house, is

where things happen. The best time in the kitchen is at 5pm when dinner is beginning to be cooked. It is when people are arriving

home and vegetables are being chopped, when

there is a cup of tea to be made and taken to my

dad who works from home.

My mother sees cooking as a task to be done as quickly as possible, using every short cut that can be

devised. I like to take time over it, appreciating the

time spent where it is just myself and my mum in the kitchen doing something together and talking. It is perhaps the luxury

of not having hungry, impatient children to cook for that means that the task of cooking does not need to be frantic.”

The face of the modern kitchen is very different to that of the Victorian service area and the rationalised laboratory. We are a culture that likes to revel in sensory experience and the kitchen is a great place to do it. We are engulfed by smells and textures, noises and colours and tastes. Busch (1999) asserts that our increasing engagement with the virtual may have influenced our celebration of the sensual.

Food As an activity essential to human life, we have always needed to eat. The consumption of food is often connected to home and family and the sharing of food can be a statement of friendship and community. To be invited into somebody’s house to share a meal is an intimate thing. Through my own research into different households, it is often the sharing of food which is an indicator as to the nature of the relationships within the house. According to Morgan (1996), explicit reference to the preparation of food is made in some definitions of the household, where the sharing of “at least one meal per day may be seen as a key defining characteristic of household membership.” The same can be true of family relationships, that can be defined in terms of food. (p.157-158)

Reflections

Where housework and food preparation in British culture has sometimes been seen as a demeaning and isolating task, other cultures have a different outlook. The women in my mother’s Greek family are used to getting together to prepare food, where it becomes a social activity. Similarly, in French culture, the baking of bread, an everyday task for the bakers, is seen to be an art form. The enjoyment of the realm of the senses is part of being human. Perhaps it is time to break from the rationalised kitchen, to engage with the chaos of the real ‘stuff’ of life.

The kitchen can be a place of society and community. Cooking can be a shared activity and an enjoyable (albeit simultaneously functional) hobby, to be lingered over. It embraces the physical and tangible, necessarily disregarding the virtual (eating is a physical need) and can be a space of security and comfort, where different generations can come together

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The Farm Project The Farm Project is an installation designed by Mike Meiré. It is loosely, a kitchen, a place to make food, but could also be called a barn, being home to sheep, pigs, fish and rabbits. It is “a workshop for the senses.” It blurs boundaries and combines objects from the past and present. There are “all sorts of modern things, crossed with the remembrance of a time when kitchen and barn, house and barnyard, storage and preparation, were all concentrated under one roof, almost in one room, when nothing had yet been shut out, and everything visibly belonged together.” (Koerver, 2012) It is the antithesis of the laboratory kitchen where everything is tidied away and out of sight. Here, everything is on display. Pots and pans are visible, along with cans and tins, vegetables on open metal shelving units. The very animals themselves are on display. Whilst referencing the past, it is also suggesting the future. The presence of farm animals in a kitchen can only mean one thing. The very materiality of the structure cries out against the sterility of the modern kitchen. The timber frame and plywood speak of a cheap, temporary structure. The objects, which include hay bales, pitchforks and buckets, as well as stainless steel and baskets, have no overriding aesthetic. It is honest in its everyday beauty.

[ Surface VI ] My Grandfather’s Objects – Of The Digital – Objects in My Grandfather’s House – Of The Elderly

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Research Exercise VII My Grandfather’s Objects

This is a panel that is looking at objects in my grandfather’s house, that are meaningful to him. It is really the objects that connect him with people that are most precious to him. These are mostly photographs of family, past and present that line every horizontal surface, and greeting cards, which adorn the mantelpiece. My artworks feature in the hallway. Family is important to my grandfather, including the wider family, who we would not hear about but for updates from him.

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The bird table is an object of affection for my grandfather. He is interested in the wildlife in his garden. He makes sure that there is food on the bird table most evenings, usually left-over from dinner.

The greenhouse and the pond are places that my grandfather feels connected with. He has been growing tomatoes year by year in the greenhouse for almost as long as he has lived there. He takes great care of the pond, often updating us on its state when we come to visit.

The living room is the scene of many family gatherings. My grandfather directs them. He steers the conversation, and provides food and tea frequently. He likes to entertain and takes great care that nothing is poorly done and that everybody is catered for.

Although my grandmother, who died 15 years ago, features in some of the photos, there is very little indication of her having lived here. Some of her things are stored in a wardrobe in one of the upper rooms. They are still precious items, having been kept rather than thrown away but they are not much part of my grandfather’s life any more.

“Before television came about, the piano used to bring people together. Somebody would play and we would sing. Then came the television. Not many people had one so we would go to somebody’s house to watch a television programme. We loved ‘What’s my line?’ When we got a television we would come together as a family to watch ‘The man from UNCLE’ in the evenings. Now when the younger generation come to visit, they sit in the living room, each with a laptop computer and a mobile phone and there is no need to interact with eachother.” My Grandfather

It is really the objects that connect him with people that are most precious to him. These are mostly photographs of family, past and present,that line every horizontal surface, and greeting cards, which adorn the mantelpiece. My artworks feature in the hallway. Family is important to my grandfather, including the wider family, who we would not hear about but for updates from him.

The television is important to my grandfather, though not in the same way as the photos. It is the function that is important, not the particular object. He would be happy with any television. It is a way for him to connect with the outside world. It keeps him in touch with society. He religiously watches Coronation Street, and will make a point of watching it in his bedroom if other people are watching something else.

The radio is important to my grandfather. It provides a voice to break the silence in a house where there is no other movement. Radio 4 or classic FM plays in the background while my grandfather makes tea in the kitchen.

DWG 25 / Exercise VII / The Archive / My Grandfather’s Objects

Theory and Ideas IV The Digital “Before television came about, the piano used to bring people together. Somebody would play and we would sing. Then came the television. Not many people had one so we would go to somebody’s house to watch a television programme. We loved ‘What’s my line?’ When we got a television we would come together as a family to watch ‘The man from UNCLE’ in the evenings. Now when the younger generation come to visit, they sit in the living room, each with a laptop computer and a mobile phone and there is no need to interact with each other.” My Grandfather

In the previous collage, my grandfather speaks about the changes that have occurred in his lifetime relating to the way in which his family interact and commune with each other. He mentions particularly the introduction of various new media, including the television and especially digital media, suggesting that the space of community is increasingly becoming a virtual one rather than a physical one. This highlighted issue was interesting to me and generated some research into the subject. It is generally accepted that digital media has made its way into our work lives, social lives and home lives without much criticism or concern. Amongst other things, it has had an impact on the way that we work and the way we relate to each other. The lure of social networking may have affected life in the home with the appeal of the personal, controllable entertainment over real, sometimes chaotic, family relationships. Physical Experience There is a new accessibility of information with which we are deluged. However, our appliances “seem to isolate us every bit as efficiently as they connect us with one another,” rendering direct experience obsolete. (Busch, 1999, p.85). We are not making full use of our senses. At the same time though, we are a culture that places great emphasis on the importance of sensual experience. Busch (1999) comments on the relationship between increased use of electronic media and the cultivation of “more physical, tangible experiences that demand we use our abilities to see, smell, hold , and touch in a real and visceral way.” She argues that the two go hand-in-hand. As we are more consumed by the virtual world, the more we yearn for physical experience. Psychological effects Social scientists at Carnegie Mellon University investigated the social and psychological effects of spending time on line. They discovered that those who frequently used the internet “experienced a higher level of anxiety and depression than those who were on line less often.” It seems that social dislocation, isolation and anxiety are a common repercussion of habitual online interaction, despite the advantages of rapid social communication.

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Returning to some of my original field research, in A Constructed Family (DWG 11 / Exercise I / The people and the house / A Constructed Family) , one member of the household was cut off from the others dues to internet relationships taking precedence over physical ones. In A Settled Family (DWG 7 / Exercise I / The people and the house / A Settled Family) the mother of the house regretted letting her children have computers in their rooms as it meant that they withdrew from the company of family for the company of the computer and were not seen until meal times. For most people, meaningful relationships involve some degree of physical presence. Social media, though a often a useful tool for maintaining relationships, should not be the sole method of interaction. There is a restlessness that seems to accompany use of the computer. It keeps us continually engaged, giving us no space to think or disconnect.

Questions Raised We have our own personal entertainment with computers and we no longer have to gather to the hearth for warmth so does this mean that we need another forum for socialising as families? How can the physical environment be more engaging and encourage physical experience of location?

Conclusion Social media arguably encourages breadth rather than depth of relationships. We are physical beings and the realm of the senses is important in how we express emotion, and experience events. It is important to connect with the world and with our physical environment. In light of the alienation that social media can propagate, I am proposing that it may be possible to use the social medium of architecture to re-engage people.

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Research Exercise VIII Objects in My Grandfather’s House This collage is a look at a wider archive of objects in my grandfather’s house. The external space, the kitchen and the living room are featured. Framed photographs and places to sit are significant in these rooms. Outside space is particularly poignant, especially in the experience of this place as a child. This panel is not especially useful to gain any analysis from because the photographs are not focusing on any one particular thing. It is useful as a broad archive of objects. Previous collages have been more successful as they have distilled information and have looked at how different members of the family are connected with the house, and their memories.

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DWG 26 / Exercise VIII / The Archive / Objects in My Grandfather’s House

Theory and Ideas V The Elderly

It could be argued that with the loss of local community and dispersion of family, care for the elderly is becoming a concern for many. Many elderly people are increasingly isolated and privatised, as their social networks shrink, especially if their kin do not live locally. With a population where the over 65s make up a large proportion, and in an age where people are living longer than ever, “care for the elderly is, in a real sense, a new problem. ” (Allan, 1985, p.126) Care for the elderly cannot be solved with a sweeping approach. If the elderly are defined as those from 65 upwards, there are many different needs that must be met. Many will remain independent and capable, some may need physical assistance, others may deteriorate mentally. Caring for the elderly within the family can be costly, both in terms of time and money, but most people would admit “the desirability and morality of the elderly being cared for by their own families.” The quality of state provision in large scale ‘asylum’ type institutions, is not socially desirable and is expensive for the individual and for the tax-payer. The extent to which the institution exercises control of the residents’ lives has been said to encourage “a level of dependence which is socially and economically counterproductive.” (Allan, 1985, p.131) The argument for care in the community is an engaging one. It advocates small scale units that allow the residents to be part of the community, using services and amenities in the local area where possible rather than relying on those provided by and located within the institution.

Reflections The elderly are a part of our society. Although the image conjured up is of the frail and infirm, who are unable to cope with daily life on their own, this is certainly not the case for all OAPs. Although many are physically and mentally fit and healthy, the potential contribution that the elderly can make in our society is undervalued. A great advantage is that of time. In no longer having the commitment to paid employment, the elderly have suddenly gained the use of many more hours and can continue to have a worthwhile presence in society.

Conclusion

If the elderly are a valuable part of our society, and still have a contribution to make, they should be made to feel so and not hidden away. The construction of architecture hides the elderly in institutions, but arguably it could it be used to more effect to unite generations and reveal parts of society that are unhelpfully concealed.

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[ Surface VII ]

Introduction to Spaces of Memory and Imagination – Cracks in the Ground- Enough Light to Read By –

Entering the Garden – Shaft of Light – Building with Cushions – Of Children

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Research Exercise IX Introduction to Spaces of Memory and Imagination These design exercises are based on the places and objects in Design Exercise V (DWG 22 / Exercise V / The Archive / My Objects in My Grandfather’s House) which are connected with stories or memories. Taking each piece of text, I have made a collage based upon it. These design exercises illustrate the way that memories can be connected to places and objects, and can conjure up particular feelings. My memories of my grandfather’s house are always happy. Many of them are connected to objects and places. The gate, the garden and the sofa are just a few. It is the memories from childhood that seem to be the most powerful in this place. A child does not analyse, but accepts, imagines and creates, prompting the thought that a space designed by a child would be completely different to that designed by an adult. Jonathan Hill speaks about architecture as being distinct from art in a gallery, where art is to be looked at and “protected against decay from heat, light and time”. Architecture is often ‘defined in terms similar to art’ and ‘an architect’s experience of architecture is more akin to the contemplation of the art object in a gallery that the occupation of a building” (Hill, 1998, p.24). I am looking at architecture, not as art, that is to be looked at and not used, but as a place that is to be lived in and experienced.

Busch (1999) writes about how often the most meaningful objects to us are those that are

nostalgic and traditional. She suggests that despite our reliance on high-tech appliances, “the

objects of our greatest affections bring a sense of history with them.”

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My Grandfather always used to warn us about the cracks in the ground after a dry season. I imagined great fissures and chasms to fall into and be swallowed up.

DWG 27 / Exercise IX / Spaces of Memory and Imagination / Cracks in the Ground

“My Grandfather always asks if we have enough light to read by and insists on

turning on all the lights.”

DWG 28 / Exercise IX / Spaces of Memory and Imagination / Enough Light to Read By

[entrance and approach]

The view of this gate as a child held for me the

heights of joy at the prospect of holiday and play

and fun. And the depths of despair at leaving.

DWG 29 / Exercise IX / Spaces of Memory and Imagination / Entering

See Video

A shaft of light from a window crosses the corridor. We had to jump over it.

Every time. I still do it.

DWG 30 / Exercise IX / Spaces of Memory and Imagination / Shaft of Light

When we were children, we built castles with the sofa cushions. We

gathered around this sofa for family photographs. We sit and drink tea

and eat cake when we get together. It all takes place around this sofa and

these chairs.

DWG 31 / Exercise IX / Spaces of Memory and Imagination / Building with Chairs

Reflections Spaces of Memory and Imagination The exercises did not prompt any further design but made me think about the significance of the place that a child occupies in society and the way in which a child view a space. Children seem to be good at really experiencing places. They like to move and climb things, press buttons and touch, using their senses. They interact with the space and change it to suit them by imagining and building. Experience of a place as a child has a lot to do with how we will view places, especially home, as an adult. Significantly, the objects of our greatest affections are often connected to a sense of history. (Busch, 1999) Children seem to approach life with an attitude of wonder and hope, with fun and imagination. Some spaces are more inspiring for children than others, however. My grandfather’s house is a place of intrigue and ritual and space to hide. Aldo Van Eyck was inspired by “the child’s restlessness and resistance to a world easily reduced to rules.” Could there be a way in which we can build “out of chaos and dreams” as Van Eyck suggests? (Lefaivre and Tzonis, 1999)

Conclusion

The idea of playfulness, fun and enjoyment is something that was missing from the purely functional Modernist agenda. We need to enjoy and experience the richness of space, using our senses. We should create space, not let space create us.

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Theory and Ideas VI Children

If we are to build the city for the child, “out of chaos and dreams”, as Van Eyck suggests, (Lefaivre and Tzonis, 1999) then society must become less segregated. Children are an important part of our society but often occupy their own space. Many young people and old people rarely come into contact with children. According to Hill and Tinsdall (1997), most of the relationships that children form are with “close relatives and other children of a similar age.” Whilst some cultures are mainly family-oriented, for others, friends and peers are more influential. Ethnic minority families have been said to “retain strong ties with a wide set of extended kin.” (Hill and Tinsdall, 1997, p.5) The media is often concerned about whether we are raising the next generation appropriately. With an increase in divorce rates and childbearing outside of marriage, the shape of the family is changing. There is a rise in the number of mothers in paid employment. (Leonard and Hood-Williams, 1988, p.1) Whilst the family has a strong influence on the child, resources, policies and neighbourhood, have an impact on the quality of care that the child receives. It has been suggested that the “quality of housing and the local environment” can affect the development of the child. (Leonard and Hood-Williams, 1988, p.1)

Conclusion

With many mothers working to support their families, children are spending an increasing amount of time away from home in childcare and after school clubs. It could be suggested that the child's links to home as a place of safety and stability, and links to the family, as primary carers, are being weakened. The connection that the child has with 'real' life, outside of the institution is lessening, especially their connection with different age-groups.

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When we were children, we built castles with the sofa cushions. We

gathered around this sofa for family photographs. We sit and drink tea

and eat cake when we get together. It all takes place around this sofa and

these chairs.

DWG 32 / Exercise IX / Spaces of Memory and Imagination / The Sofa

DWG 33 / Exercise IX / Spaces of Memory and Imagination / The Sofa

DWG 34 / Exercise IX / Spaces of Memory and Imagination / The Sofa

DWG 35 / Exercise IX / Spaces of Memory and Imagination / The Sofa

DWG 36 / Exercise IX / Spaces of Memory and Imagination / The Sofa

[ Design Project]

Proposing a Collaged Architecture – The 10 Conclusions – The Strategies – The Site – Site Plan – Site

Photos and Analysis

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Design Project Proposing a Collaged Architecture Aldo Van Eyck proposes that ‘a city should be like a huge house’. I am proposing that the same should be said for a community or neighbourhood. A neighbourhood should be seen and function as a large house. If the neighbourhood is a house, then I am proposing that Busch’s realms of home should be present here. A place to make things, a place of nourishment and community, and a place of private and necessary sanctuary. My proposal is to create a series of infill architectures or 'strategies' in a residential, everyday, 1970s housing estate. Collage refers to the idea of cutting and pasting into the site. It is reflective of the way that I have been working on my collaged panels. I have used methods such as cutting, casting, tracing and erasure. These are concepts that I am using in the design of my strategies. As well as filling in spaces, I will be cutting spaces away and erasing to reveal what is beneath. The strategies are to address key issues that have been identified in my research. Those of

Belonging, isolation, alienation, ownership, responsibility, transparency vs privacy, internalisation of family life, attachment, apathy, generational divide, combined with the concept of the realms of home (Busch,1999) Collaged architecture is an architecture against simplicity. It is clear from my research and experience that people are not simple and cannot be predicted and controlled. Determinism, as Hill writes, “assumes that the actions of the user are predictable. It is the most contradictory and alarming aspect of the Modernist agenda because, from the architect, it demands a faith in science that cannot be validated scientifically and from the user, it expects merely obedience.” Venturi speaks about an architecture that is “hybrid rather than 'pure,' compromising rather than 'clean,' distorted rather than 'straightforward,'” (Venturi, 1977, p.16) This collaged Architecture is about layers and depth. There is a history to buildings and people and objects. It is against the mass produced and alienating and towards the small-scale, the personal and engaging.

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Research Conclusions The 10 Conclusions .

.

1. People are, by nature, creative, and freedom to create is important.

There is an ingenuity to the way that people inhabit space. The built

environment, if it is to be enjoyed, must allow for this control and expression. There is an extent to which it doesn’t really matter what the architect does, as long as it allows the user to appropriate it easily.

2. External space is important. Modernism understood this. With more and

more houses being built, space is becoming tight, but it is clear that there is a desire for both communal outdoor space and private outdoor space.

3. People are more likely to take care of their homes and neighbourhoods when

they feel connected to them. If we are constantly having to move from our

houses because they are too rigid to adapt to our changing needs, then how can

we build community, belonging and attachment to place?

4. The idea of playfulness, fun and enjoyment is something that was

missing from the purely functional Modernist agenda. We need to enjoy and

experience the richness of space, using our senses. We should create

space, not let space create us.

5. Young people, old people and housewives, who rely heavily on local ties, make up a large proportion of the wider population. More people than ever are working from home. If people are less able to travel distances for services and social contacts, then there is an

argument for more provision of local facilities. If it is a valid proposal that a city should be like a large house, then perhaps these community facilities should be based on Busch’s realms of home. Moreover, the less we have to travel to

reach our friends and services, the less impact we are having on the environment.

102

6. Social media arguably encourages breadth rather than depth of relationships. We are physical beings and the realm of the senses is important in how we express

emotion, and experience events. It is important to connect with the world and with our physical

environment. In light of the alienation that social media can propagate, there is a possibility that the social medium of architecture could be used to re-engage people.

7. It is important to feel valued and useful and connected to what we are doing and

why we are doing it. then we are disconnected, out of control and alienated from our

work, it can produce an apathy which might lead to depression and despair. The

task of making can help to restore satisfaction in our work, as can the control that one has in being self-employed or working from home. A place to make things is one of Busch’s realms of home. If the place of work is increasingly at home, perhaps the place of work could also be a place to make things, and a private and necessary sanctuary, away from the heart of the home.

8. With many mothers working to support their families, children are spending an increasing amount of time away from home in childcare and after school clubs. It could be suggested that the child's links to home as a place of safety and stability,

and links to the family, as primary carers, are being weakened. The

connection that the child has with 'real' life, outside of the

institution is lessening, especially their connection with different

age-groups.

9. If the elderly are a valuable part of our society, and still have a contribution to

make, they should be made to feel so and not hidden away. The construction of

architecture hides the elderly in institutions, but arguably it could it be used to

more effect to unite generations and reveal parts of society that are unhelpfully concealed.

10. The kitchen can be a place of society and community. Cooking can be a shared activity and an enjoyable (albeit simultaneously functional) hobby, to be lingered over. It embraces the physical and tangible, necessarily disregarding the virtual (eating is a physical need) and can be a space of security and comfort, where different generations can come together.

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Design Project The 12 Strategies

The Classroom – A place of community re-engagement, against

an intergenerational divide

The Kitchen/Bakery – A place of community, learning and

creativity. A place of nourishment and community, together with a place to make things

The Garden - a place for reflection

The Conservatory – A place of generational transparency. The

elderly are hidden away from society in institutions. This is a warm and comfortable place, where life outside can be observed and outside can see in.

The Enterprising Office - a place to make things and re-

engage with the physical, but also a place of sanctuary, slightly away from the bustle of the home.

104

Design Project The Strategies

The Playground – A place to play and to enjoy, against

functionalism.

The Pool – A place to play. This is a place for adults too.

The House to be Built- A frame that allows occupation

The Split House – A space of conflict and division.

The Clawing back of land – A place of control and

freedom of creativity

The Ball Park – A place to play games, not restricted by

rules.

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Design Project

The Site

The site I have chosen is an example of the everyday, not remarkable or high-profile. Built in the 1970s it

is an estate highly geared towards cars and efficiency and convenience. The communal space is devoted to

car-parking and much of it is adorned with orders of “Playing of ball games is prohibited.”

This is a spacious housing estate. There is a mixture of private space, both front and back gardens for

most houses, and the internal space is generous. Communal space is designed in. The communal spaces,

though some are covered in grass, do not lend themselves to being used for anything other than just

passing through. They are not ‘owned’ or appropriated by anyone, and as such have a feeling of slight

neglect, being neither here nor there.

Residents are a mixture of age groups and classes, families, students, older people. There is a school

nearby and a residential care home.

There are many cut-throughs between terraces. These are surprising spaces, infused with intrigue.

There is a large concrete space devoted to car parking. It looks like a derelict site, with the tarmac uneven

and potholes, but is in fact, often in use. Gardens back onto it, with gates that lead out. Although it is a

large open space and there are lots of children around, they are forbidden from playing in it. It is a purely

functional space.

Despite it being a space purely for cars, it is placed very centrally in the estate and everything leads our

from it. It can be approached from all sides via passageways between houses, and by road from the north.

The walls that separate this space from gardens are the height of a man, so that the gardens are separated

visually from the cars. It gives a feeling of a space that is turned away from with a sense of soullessness

about it. There is no delineation between pedestrian areas and road.

This wider site is defined by walls. They guide and protect, growing and shrinking in height depending on

location.

I stood in the sunshine at 1pm and felt the stillness and warmth in a spot that was south-facing, keeping

the sunshine for much of the day, despite it being late winter. It was calling for a bench and a pot plant.

Garden gates open onto this passageway. Here the walls' enclosure and protection feel positive.

106

DWG 37 / Design Project/ The Site/ Oxford

Boundary Brook Road

DWG 38 / Design Project/ The Site/ Boundary Brook Road

DWG 40 / Design Project/ The Site/ Site Model

There is a large concrete space

devoted to car parking. It looks like a

derelict site, with the tarmac uneven

and potholes, but is in fact, often in

use. Gardens back onto it, with gates

that lead out. Although it is a large

open space and there are lots of

children around, they are forbidden

from playing in it. It is a purely

functional space.

Despite it being a space purely for

cars, it is placed very centrally in the

estate and everything leads our from

it. It can be approached from all

sides via passageways between

house, and by road from the north.

The walls that separate this space from people's gardens are the height of a man, so that the gardens are separated visually from the cars. It gives a feeling of a space that is turned away from. There is a sense of soullessness about it. There is no delineation between pedestrian areas and road.

I stood in the sunshine at 1pm and felt the stillness and warmth in a spot that was south-facing, keeping the sunshine for much of the day, despite it being late winter. It was calling for a bench and a pot plant. Garden gates open onto this passageway. Here the walls' enclosure and protection feel positive.

This wider site is defined by walls. They guide and protect, growing and shrinking in height depending on location.

There are many cut-throughs between terraces. These are surprising spaces, infused with intrigue.

DWG 41 / Design Project/ The Site/ Descriptions and Photos

[ Design Strategies] The Classroom – The Community Bakery - The Walled Garden – The Conservatory - The Enterprising

Office –- The Playground and the Pool – The Frame - The Ball Park – The Split House

113

The Pool

The Community Bakery

The House to be built

The Garden

The Enterprising Office

The Clawing Back of Land

The Conservatory

The Split House

The Classroom

The Playground

DWG 39 / Design Project/ The Site/ Locations of Strategies

DWG 41 / Design Project/ The Site/ Site Model with Locations

Design Strategy I The Classroom

With many mothers working to support their families, children are spending an increasing amount of time away from home in childcare and after school clubs. It could be suggested that the child's links to home as a place of safety and stability, and links to the family, as primary carers, are being

weakened. The connection that the child has with 'real' life, outside of the institution is lessening, especially their connection with different age-groups.

The Classroom strategy is taking a classroom directly from the school nearby and relocating it in the heart of the Boundary Brook estate. The strategy is to provide a space for learning. It is to engage all of the community, especially the elderly, who may be asked to come and talk to the children or teach some skills. There is a residential care home nearby. The classroom is used as a normal classroom during the day time, and after school is opened up as an after school club for the whole of the community. It is to bring back the comfort of learning.

114

DWG 42 / Design Project/ Strategy I / The Classroom

Design Strategy II The Community Bakery

The kitchen can be a place of society and community. Cooking can be a shared activity and an enjoyable (albeit simultaneously functional) hobby, to be lingered over. It embraces the physical and tangible, necessarily disregarding the virtual (eating is a physical need) and can be a space of security and comfort, where different generations can come together. Young people, old people and housewives, who rely heavily on local ties, make up a large proportion of the wider population. More people than ever are working from home. If people are less able to travel distances for services and social contacts, then there is an argument for more provision of

local facilities. If it is a valid proposal that a city should be like a large house, then perhaps these community facilities should be based on Busch’s realms of home. Moreover, the less we have to travel to reach our friends and services, the less impact we

are having on the environment.

The ‘bakery on the corner’ used to be a place of chance encounter, of meeting and community. People were brought together by a common need, bread in the morning. This is still a common sight in France, where preservatives in bread are banned, meaning that fresh bread is required every morning. As the supermarket takes over from local shops, the local bakery has all but disappeared in Britain. This proposal is for a bakery that is used in the morning, which is a business, but a community kitchen in the afternoon and evening. The facilities are there for large scale cooking. It is a place where people can host their own dinner parties, make their own bread or pizza in the bread oven and share the experience of cooking. There is an opportunity for multigenerational interaction, especially in sharing knowledge of culinary skills. Children like to use their senses and the kitchen is possibly one of the most engaging places for that. It embraces touch, smell, taste, sound, and sight. This is a place of learning and creativity, a place of nourishment and community, and rich multi-cultural and multi-generational experience.

116

DWG 43 / Design Project/ Strategy II / The Community Bakery

DWG 44 / Design Project/ Strategy II / The Community Bakery

DWG 45 / Design Project/ Strategy II / The Community Bakery

DWG 46 / Design Project/ Strategy II / The Community Bakery

DWG 47 / Design Project/ Strategy II / The Community Bakery

Design Strategy III

The Walled Garden

Social media arguably encourages breadth rather than depth of relationships.

We are physical beings and the realm of the senses is important in how we express emotion, and experience

events. It is important to connect with the world and with our physical environment. In light of

the alienation that social media can propagate, there is a possibility that the social medium

of architecture could be used to re-engage people.

External space is important. Modernism understood this. With more and more houses being

built, space is becoming tight, but it is clear that there is a desire for both communal outdoor

space and private outdoor space.

Digital technology follows us everywhere. We do not get a moment alone. It often keeps us indoors, and

sometimes confines us to our bedrooms. We have no idea of what goes on around us. We sometimes do

not even notice when it gets dark or what the weather is like. We fail to ‘stumble upon’ these rare,

tranquil, sunny spots, because we are in a rush. This particular location is advantageous in terms of

sunshine throughout the day. It is south facing and is protected from wind by 2m high walls. As I stood

there at midday in early spring, it was warm and comfortable and only needed a bench to be an ideal

location for sitting outside.

The Walled Garden combines a place of meeting and a place of sanctuary. It is like the porch, not quite

public, not quite private. It is a place to stop and reflect, but also a means of being outside and noticing the

weather and the activity and sounds of life, that many of us are cut off from, especially with the lures of

social media and computer networking. It is a place to happen upon, that facilitates chance encounters.

It is not a landscaped garden. It is a few paving slabs, a bench or two and one or two pot plants. The

feeling of ‘place’ is created by the objects. The site is enclosed and is occasionally used as a dumping ground

for trolleys. In putting plants and benches in this place, it creates a space that is cared for and not

abandoned.

122

DWG 48 / Design Project/ Strategy III / The Walled Garden

N

DWG 49 / Design Project/ Strategy III / The Walled Garden / MIDDAY

N

DWG 50 / Design Project/ Strategy III / The Walled Garden / 13:00hrs

N

DWG 51 / Design Project/ Strategy III / The Walled Garden / 14:00hrs

N

DWG 52 / Design Project/ Strategy III / The Walled Garden / 15:00hrs

N

DWG 53 / Design Project/ Strategy III / The Walled Garden / 16:00hrs

N

DWG 54 / Design Project/ Strategy III / The Walled Garden / 17:00hrs

N

DWG 55 / Design Project/ Strategy III / The Walled Garden / 18:00hrs

N

DWG 56 / Design Project/ Strategy III / The Walled Garden / 19:00hrs

N

DWG 57 / Design Project/ Strategy III / The Walled Garden / Garden with precision

N

Design Strategy IV The Conservatory

If the elderly are a valuable part of our society, and still have a contribution to make, they

should be made to feel so and not hidden away. The construction of architecture hides

the elderly in institutions, but arguably it could it be used to more effect to unite generations and reveal parts of society that are unhelpfully concealed.

The Conservatory is a place of generational transparency. The elderly are often hidden away

from society in institutions. In the spirit of my cut-and-paste collage architecture, I have taken the elderly people from the care home nearby and brought them into the heart of the Boundary Brook estate. The conservatory is a warm and comfortable place, where the residents can observe and be observed. They are no longer hidden but can interact and engage with different generations of people around. This is a variation of the concept of care in the community. Children and the elderly are increasingly segregated, parents are sacrificing money to pay for childcare. Here the two can be reconciled by asking the elderly to take care of children, not just in a family context but in a community context.

133

DWG 59 / Design Project/ Strategy IV / The Conservatory / Existing Site

DWG 59 / Design Project/ Strategy IV / The Conservatory / Glass Infill

DWG 60 / Design Project/ Strategy IV / The Conservatory / Sitting in the Sunshine

DWG 61 / Design Project/ Strategy IV / The Conservatory / Section Through Existing House

DWG 62 / Design Project/ Strategy IV / The Conservatory / Section Through Proposed Conservatory

DWG 63 / Design Project/ Strategy IV / The Conservatory / Section Through Proposed Conservatory

Design Strategy V The Enterprising Office

It is important to feel valued and useful and connected to what we are doing and why we are doing it. then we are disconnected, out of control and alienated from our work, it can produce an apathy

which might lead to depression and despair. The task of making can help to restore satisfaction in our work, as can the control that one has in being self-employed or working

from home. A place to make things is one of Busch’s realms of home. If the place of work is increasingly at home, perhaps the place of work could also be a place to make things, and a private and necessary sanctuary, away from the heart of the home.

The garages are a place to make things and re-engage with the physical, but also a place of sanctuary, slightly away from the bustle of the home. A variation on the home office, this is a bottom-up approach to business and work. The only designer’s influence is to insulate the spaces. The rest is up to the user. The garage scheme allows extra space that can be used for hobbies, studios, enterprise, with an emphasis on freedom of creativity that doesn’t have to be ‘packed away’ The site is ideal for this function. It is existing space with easy vehicular access, and outside space to open out onto. The garages also back onto gardens behind so can be connected to individual houses if necessary. Spaces included could be: Artist’s studios Recording studio Storage Carpenter’s workshop Sewing room

140

DWG 64 / Design Project/ Strategy V / The Enterprising Office / Exploded Plan

Design Strategies VI and VII The Playground and The Pool

The idea of playfulness, fun and enjoyment is something that was missing from the purely functional Modernist agenda. We need to enjoy and experience the richness of space, using our senses. We should create space, not let space create us.

This space of this site is defined by signs at each corner giving the order of “Playing of ball games is prohibited” which may also be interpreted as “Playing is prohibited.” Fun is not allowed. The Pool is a seasonal strategy. It is for adults as much as for children. A deep trench is filled with water heated by the large oven in the bakery. It is place for relaxation after work.

142

DWG 64 / Design Project/ Strategy VI / A Place to Play/ Collage to Climb

DWG 65 / Design Project/ Strategy VII / The Pool/ Existing Site

DWG 66 / Design Project/ Strategy VII / The Pool/ Put Some Sand Down and They Will Play

Design Strategy VIII The Frame .

1. People are, by nature, creative, and freedom to create is important. There is an ingenuity to

the way that people inhabit space. The built environment, if it is to be enjoyed, must allow for this

control and expression. There is an extent to which it doesn’t really matter what the architect does, as long as it allows the user to appropriate it easily.

This is a strategy that gives space to residents to build and extend. The frame is begun by the designer and can be occupied with inserted structures. These can be simple as it is the frame that takes the load. It allows user control and creativity. It is based on the idea of the ‘unfinished building’ that Schneider and Till (2007) write about with “spaces, both internal and external, that can be filled-in according to the specific requirements of the building’s inhabitants.” (Schneider and Till, 2007, p.137)

146

DWG 67 / Design Project/ Strategy VIII / The Frame/ Existing Site

DWG 68 / Design Project/ Strategy VIII / The Frame/ October

DWG 69 / Design Project/ Strategy VIII / The Frame/ December

DWG 70 / Design Project/ Strategy VIII / The Frame/ March

DWG 71 / Design Project/ Strategy VIII / The Frame/ March

DWG 72 / Design Project/ Strategy VIII / The Frame/ April

DWG 73 / Design Project/ Strategy VIII / The Frame/ June

Design Strategy IX The Ball Park

The idea of playfulness, fun and enjoyment is something that was missing from the purely functional Modernist agenda. We need to enjoy and experience the richness of space, using our senses. We should create space, not let space create us.

This is a temporary strategy against functionalism and for enjoyment.

153

DWG 74 / Design Project/ Strategy IX / The Ball Park/ March

DWG 75 / Design Project/ Strategy IX / The Ball Park/ March

Design Strategy X The Gaining-Back of Land

External space is important. Modernism understood this. With more and more houses being built,

space is becoming tight, but it is clear that there is a desire for both communal outdoor space and

private outdoor space.

A place of control and freedom of creativity. Residents are given an extension to their garden to do anything with. The area is the same footprint as the existing gardens and each person is given the same amount.

Design Strategy X The Split House The Split house is the house of a messy divorce. Compared to the other strategies and interventions, it is a violent act, a tearing apart. It speaks about another side of family relationships. Though we might like to believe that if we had better communities, facilities and space, we could live in a utopian society, the reality is that people are imperfect and relationships are flawed and consequently sometimes end badly.

The Inhabitants of the split house “Economically, it is easier for all of us to stay in the same house. It is jointly owned and cannot be maintained on one income. It is better for our two children to have both their parents in close proximity and this way we do not need to agree on arrangement of custody. We just couldn’t share our space anymore. We needed a real, physical barrier. With the split, we can’t hear each other and only occasionally have to see each other. The children can cross over on either of the two bridges to have time with one parent or another.”

156

DWG 76 / Design Project/ Strategy X / The Split House/ Before the Split

DWG 77 / Design Project/ Strategy X / The Split House/ A Tear

DWG 78 / Design Project/ Strategy X / The Split House/ Revealing the Cracks

DWG 79 / Design Project/ Adaptable House

DWG 80 / Design Project/ Adaptable House

DWG 81 / Design Project/ Adaptable House

[ Strategies in Detail] The Conservatory – The Pool – The Split House

163

DWG 82 / Strategies in Detail / The Conservatory / Existing

DWG 83 / Strategies in Detail / The Conservatory / Drawing the Existing

DWG 84 / Strategies in Detail / The Conservatory / Section

DWG 85 / Strategies in Detail / The Conservatory / Section in Detail

DWG 86 / Strategies in Detail / The Conservatory / Existing

DWG 87 / Strategies in Detail / The Conservatory / Building the Frame

DWG 88 / Strategies in Detail / The Conservatory / Laying the Flooring

DWG 89 / Strategies in Detail / The Conservatory / Section in Detail

DWG 90 / Strategies in Detail / The Pool / Empty Pool

DWG 91 / Strategies in Detail / The Pool / Boardwalk

DWG 92 / Strategies in Detail / The Pool / Filled With Water

DWG 93 / Strategies in Detail / The Pool / Cutting into the Boardwalk

DWG 94 / Strategies in Detail / The Pool / The Pool in detail

DWG 95 / Strategies in Detail / The Split House / The Tear

DWG 96 / Strategies in Detail / The Split House / Collaging The Tear

DWG 97 / Strategies in Detail / The Split House / Repairing the Tear

DWG 98 / Strategies in Detail / The Split House / Repairing the Tear

DWG 99 / Strategies in Detail / The Split House / Repairing the Tear in Detail

DWG 100 / Strategies in Detail / The Split House / Repairing the Tear

[ To Be Occupied…..]

185

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186

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Exhibition A Place to call home exhibition at the RIBA, 66 Portland Place, 16 February 2012 - 28 April 2012, curated by Sarah Beanie

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Moore, R. (2010). Robin Hood Gardens: don't knock it... down. Available: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/dec/05/robin-hood-gardens-east-london. Last accessed 11 Jan 2012. Sand, Wind and Tide series (1969). [Image online] Available at: http://www.boylefamily.co.uk/boyle/about/index.html. Last Accessed 10 December 2011 Social Enterprise at the Bromley By Bow Centre (n.d) Retrieved March 14, 2012 from http://www. bbbc.org.uk/pages/enterprise.html Ward, C. (year unknown). Walter Segal, Community Architect. Available: http://www.segalselfbuild.co.uk/about.html. Last accessed 10 Mar.

Other Websites Robin Hood Gardens http://www.eastlondonlines.co.uk/2011/01/robin-hood-gardens-estate-to-be-redeveloped/ http://www.eastlondonlines.co.uk/2012/01/blackwell-reach-development-could-create-700-affordable-homes/#more-54506 Self Build http://www.selfbuild-central.co.uk/first-ideas/examples/hedgehog-co-op/ Robin Hood Gardens plans http://modernarchitecturelondon.com/pages/robinhood-gardens.php Self-build http://www.mybrightonandhove.org.uk/page_id__5806_path__0p115p194p846p.aspx Lafayette http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/10/15/opinion/20101015_Lafayette.html