Drain House: Plumbing Habitation

Drain House

Plumbing Habitation Dreama D. Johnson

Dreama D. Johnson | M. Arch Design & Research 2 | Prof. George Johnston Georgia Institute of Technology | Spring 2019

“…to be a true accomplice, however, the reader must agree with the importance of interfering with the tyranny of the single family house.”1

1 Lars Lerup, Planned Assaults : The Nofamily House, Love/House, Texas Zero (Montréal : Cambridge, Mass.: Montréal : Centre Canadian d’Architecture/Canadian Centre for Architecture ; Cambridge, Mass. : Distributed by the MIT Press, 1987).

Contents Hierarchy of Space

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The Smallest Room

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Design Vocabulary

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Project 1 | Half Bath

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Project 2 | Four Toilets

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Project 3 | Two Point Five Baths

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Project 4 | Four Showers Three Sinks

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Notes on Process

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Bibliography

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Fig. 1 Modest, American Traditional style oorplan. Three bedrooms, two baths. Master suite is highlighted in green. The remainder of the house is serviced by the single bath highlighted in orange.

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Drain HousePlumbing Habitation There is a social hierarchy embedded in the standard floorplan of the “Single Family Residence�, which can be traced directly through the exclusivity of plumbing access given to bedrooms. By dissolving the walls of the house, attention can be brought to this relationship. Released from subordination, plumbing becomes generative of an architecture rather than subject to the dictates of its enclosure. Given its own voice, it becomes the factor to which other architectural forms conform.

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Fig. 2 Roman Latrine, Oscia (Getty Images)

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Hierarchy of Space

Peruse the residential real estate listings in virtually any American city, and you will see three pieces of information, abbreviated but so ubiquitous they need no translation to the average reader. These three abbreviations give a strong insight into the general characteristics of the property: Square footage, number of bedrooms, and number of bathrooms.

Reading more deeply into these listings, one will find in virtually every listing, one of these bathrooms is listed as a “master” bath - a bathroom with private access, adjoining a (generally larger) bedroom. Private access to this bathroom is often what defines a “master” bedroom. Implicit in the language is the concept of hierarchy- the master bedroom, and its attendant private bathing facility, is the domain of the “master” of the house. The most luxurious of homes might have multiple “ensuite” bathrooms, but generally one of them will still be larger, with more fixtures and features- garden tubs, separate showers with rainfall heads, an enclosed toilet. So how has this small space become so important, that its configuration and access define the larger rooms with which it adjoins? It is often overlooked, its facilities and function taken for granted. Until we travel abroad and encounter 9

a new culture with a radically different take on waste management, it never occurs to us what hides within our walls. Carefully concealed pipes bring us fresh water and other pipes whisk away our effluent and vent noxious gases to the outside. Plumbing carries a rich history, one enmeshed with advances in science and medicine, with religious beliefs and ideas of morality, with taboos and with issues of control. This small room is at the heart of the modern American home, even as we discretely close the door and politely avoid its mention.

Fig. 3 Segregated Bathrooms in 1960 (Getty Images)

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Sanitation and hygiene are crucial needs. All members of a household require access to facilities to meet these needs, but the degree of privacy and individual control they have over these facilities expresses their location within a social structure of authority and hierarchy in the home. The plumbing which facilitates this is normally delineated within the walls, hidden from view. Subversion of this relationship of plumbing as subordinate to the walls reflects the idea of the social hierarchy as subordinate to the plumbing, or vice versa.

This project wants you to question the “normal� order. It wants you to question, who inhabits a space? Is it the same person for which the space was designed? How are certain assumptions embedded within the architecture? By extracting the plumbing as the dominant feature and dissolving the walls, the plumbing is permitted to speak for itself, to express its own desires and its own agenda. What do we, as architects, assume about habitation, about social structures, about program, when we lay out a floor plan for a residence? Can we dispense with these assumptions? If so, how? Allowing a secondary system like plumbing to set the dictates of the enclosure subverts the entire way we think about design, and in so doing questions our strategies. It is in this space that Drain House exists: an intriguing array of forms as well as a prod to our awareness, a formal exercise as well as a critical one. It is a visual metaphor to provoke critique.

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Fig. 4 Old Wooden Outhouse (publicdomainpictures.net)

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The Smallest Room

In order to isolate and analyze the American bathroom, we should first place it within an historical framework. According to Ellen Lupton, the bathroom as we know it did not exist as an architectural space prior to the late 19th century1. Adolf Loos goes so far as to say, “Without plumbing, there would have been no 19th century”2. Before this time, personal waste was managed using chamber pots and other containers (frequently employed in the confines of the bedroom) or kept outdoors with the use of an outhouse or privy. Septic systems and sewers are a relatively recent invention in “Western” civilization.

Generally, it is agreed that the history of modern sanitation begins with London’s decision to build a sewer system in 1858. Rather than resulting from this decision, widespread use

1 Ellen Lupton, The Bathroom, the Kitchen and the Aesthetics of Waste : A Process of Elimination, ed. J. Abbott Miller and M. I. T. List Visual Arts Center (Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge, Mass. : MIT List Visual Arts Center : Distributed by Princeton Architectural Press, 1992).

2 Adolf Loos, Spoken into the Void : Collected Essays, 1897-1900 (Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge, Mass. : Published for the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Chicago, Ill. and the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, New York, N.Y., by MIT Press, 1982).

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of the water closet precipitated the need for this system3. Until vastly expanded and improved sewers were constructed, overflow from local cesspits would run into the poorly regulated natural waterways that were serving as sewers. In 1850, over 65% of homes in the wealthier St. James Parish in Westminster contained a water closet fed by a rooftop cistern. Public policy at the time permitted citizens to link cesspits into the inadequate system, adding significantly to the volume of runoff carrying sewage into the streets. Frequent cholera outbreaks, brought about by the unsanitary conditions, prompted legislators to look at the problem more closely. This decision was particularly hastened by an event called The Great Stink of 1858, in which Parliament was forced to disperse due to an overwhelming miasma rising from the Thames. The decision to eliminate all the cesspits in favor of a drainage network of underground salt glazed pipes was paralleled by social reforms governing the responsibility of property owners to maintain adequate sanitary measures to ensure the health of the city at large. Other cities soon followed suit.

A surprising link between the engineering of better urban environments and advances in medical science would ultimately deliver us the modern water-born plumbing system we enjoy (for better or for worse) today. In 1628, William Harvey wrote Du motu cordis, explaining how the heart pumps blood through a system of arteries and veins.

French Urbanist Christian Patte would late use this idea to envision the system of streets in Paris as a circulatory system prone to clogs and blockages. Envisioning the city free of effluent (and therefore disease) linked medicine and civil engineering in a surprising manner.

As engineers improved the condition in the streets, so those streets opened to public occupation and the health of its citizens improved4. Providing public toilets discouraged open urination in the streets. Smooth paving to aid in cleaning encouraged people to stop littering the streets with waste and opened them to public habitation. Cleanliness of the city as well as cleanliness of the toilet facility and of the body became more and more a matter of morality. The growing realization that hygiene and sanitation were issues of public health

3 Barbara Penner, Bathroom (London, England : Reaktion Books, 2013).

4 Richard Sennett, Building and Dwelling : Ethics for the City, First American edition.. ed. (New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018).

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brought an increased emphasis on bathing in general. Improvements in water delivery resulted in an ever-increasing use and appreciation of water closets by every strata of society.

All these changes, joined by governmentally imposed regulations and this new awareness of hygiene, meant more people were inspired to install water closets. Initially, bathing was still conducted in various portable tubs elsewhere in the house. A person wealthy enough to have servants hauling water might bathe in their bedroom, for instance, while a poorer person might bathe in the kitchen near the stove that is heating the water. It wasn’t until a means for heating water and piping that hot water to the tub was invented that combining the space of the toilet and the bath made practical sense.

Thus, the architectural space of the bathroom was born.

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branch vent

vent stack vent stack

toilet

wet vent

slope 1/4� per 1’

soil stack

Fig 5 Vent terminology

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Design Vocabulary

Plumbing has its own vocabulary. If we are going to extract a design language from this system, we must analyze its logics. Lines bringing water into the system are called SUPPLY lines. Lines carrying water and waste to the septic or sewer system and gases to the roof are called DRAIN WASTE VENT lines (or DWV). They are each governed by their own rules.

We must examine these rules and extract from them a vocabulary. Only in uncovering this vocabulary, will the plumbing be free to speak. In order to do this, we first look at these fittings in detail and understand what their purpose is, what their constraints are, and to what forms do they lend themselves.

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90o

90o

Supply “Ell”

Supply “Tee”

Fig 6 Supply line fittings

SUPPLY lines are also referred to as the HIGH-PRESSURE SYSTEM. This means that the pipes are always filled with water. The water you receive when you open a faucet is water that was waiting in the pipe, while the water being supplied on the front end is filling the pipe to maintain that pressure. These lines are a closed system. We are not concerned with drainage (except in certain environments, when water will be seasonally drained from the lines). Because drainage is not an issue, we can plumb these lines at 90 degrees, or really any angle we wish. The pipe diameters are small (3/4” is standard for residential systems) and the connections are not concerned with introducing turbulence and can therefore be smooth on the exterior and uneven on the interior. These pipes only ever SPLIT1.

1 Walter T. Grondzik, Mechanical and Electrical Equipment for Buildings, 11th ed.. ed. (Hoboken, N.J.: Hoboken, N.J. : Wiley, 2010).

Fig 7 Supply line split

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Fig 8 Drain line combine

DRAIN WASTE VENT lines are also referred to as the LOW-PRESSURE SYSTEM. This means that the pipes are filled with air until the moment they are in use. Air must be allowed into the system through venting, and sewer gases must be prevented from traveling back up through the system by traps. These pipes must fall within a range of angles calculated to optimize the flow of water and solid waste in the lines. Too steep of an angle and the water will rush through, depositing solids and particulate in the pipes. Too shallow and the same will happen, solids and particulate deposits will accumulate and result in a clog.

Standard slope is ¼” in 1’, Fittings are designed to minimize the turbulence they introduce, so that the interior of the pipe sits against a lip that decreases any additional friction that would result from the interior of the fitting being out of line with the interior of the pipe.

This is reflected by the hubs on the exterior of the fitting which allow the interior diameter of the pipe to align with the fitting and reduce turbulence. These pipes are also much larger, starting at about 1 ½” for sinks drains and 3” for toilet drains, and increasing in size the deeper into the system. These pipes will only ever COMBINE.

135.58o

91.15o

DWV 90

DWV 45 91.15o

DWV Trap Fig 9 Drain waste vent fittings

91.15o

DWV “Tee” 135.58o

DWV “Why” 19

toilet suppy

vent stack

air chambers sink supply

tub/shower supply

sink drain

tub drain

hot cold

tub trap

waste

closet bend

Fig 10 Plumbing detail

Between these two systems can be found the fixtures. Toilets, sinks, showers, faucets‌ it is at these points that the supply and the drain interface with the inhabitants of the architecture. In a normal mode, it is these interface points that we see- all else is hidden within the enclosure of the walls. Dissolving these walls would allow the arrangements of pipes and fittings to be seen. Hot and cold supply lines running in neat orthogonal lines, the larger DWV lines slanting ever so slightly across them like bold cursive. The vent stack reaches skyward, in opposition to the drain lines leading ever deeper down. From outside the walls, the arrangement of smooth porcelain fixtures is simple. Looking within, a surprisingly complex web of relationships is uncovered.

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Main Stack Auxiliary Stack Auxiliary Stack

to Sewer Water Heater

Supply

Fig 11 Plumbing diagram with house

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Project 1 | Half Bath

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I am the base condition. This is what you would find, if you cared to look.

I am quiet. I conform to walls, peeking out only shyly. You can pretend I do not exist, until I am needed. Indeed, this seems to be your preference and I do not mind. I am subordinate- to your desires, to the enclosure of the wall. My space is harshly delimited within 2x4 frames. I am a prisoner here, rendered mute.

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Project 2 | Four Toilets

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I have dissolved your taboos as I have dissolved your walls. Existing in

uncomfortable proximity but egalitarian in access, this toilet brooks no hierarchy, offers no privacy, conveys no importance. Your toilet is exactly as everyone else’s. Here you utilize the same space. Drains serve the room but are no longer subordinate, they dominate with their structures and their needs. Elegant supply lines, without such restrictions as imposed by gravity, zig and zag to their proscribed destination with caprice. They cater to your needs but are unconcerned with your comfort. This is not a room of luxury, it is one of necessity, and navigating it entangles you in layers of implications, both physical and social. You are reduced to an input to this system.

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Project 3 | Two Point Five Baths

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Why have one “master bedroom�? Why not have two? I offer this, a

luxurious plenty of water and privacy. The expressive intersection of structural extrusions and clean, smooth interfaces allow the pipes freedom within the playground of its constraints. We see what is obligate is rendered a frame upon which to hang form. Plumbing here becomes form, informs structure.

Given imaginative latitude with which to express, lines in space delineate volume and imply negative mass.

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base plan

cold overlay

hot overlay

waste overlay

vent overlay

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Project 4 | Four Showers Three Sinks

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As FOUR TOILETS had no concern for your taboos, I too take little in-

terest in such. I do, however, seek to make a space for you. My limbs arch overhead and weave a canopy of water to rain upon you as you stand in the margin between input and output. You engage me through fixtures and all of your senses. Fluid moving across your skin. Mist in the air. The music of pipes playing rhythms all around. I am a compositional conceit‌ two modules multiplied, shower and sink. Each makes its own demands of input and outflow, placing you at their intersection.

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Notes on Process

When I set out on this project, I knew that I wanted to use models to explore the thesis but also that I didn’t want to try to predict exactly where each model would take me.

There is a process at work, both within the materiality of making and within the ongoing consideration of concept. One informs the other, frequently in surprising ways. It is very important to me to remain open to learning new things, both concrete things to be found in making and building, as well as critical ones in how I think about and approach the project.

Knowing that these models were going to focus on plumbing, I first had to locate or design a set of fittings. I was careful to avoid making theses models too representational. By this I mean, having a perfect scale model of a home with accurate plumbing might appear more like dollhouse kitsch, which would detract from reading it as an architectural and visual mode of critique as intended. So the balance would be struck between crafting accuracy in letting the plumbing speak without becoming too “precious� and detailed with the craft. No fittings I could locate seemed to meet these criteria, so I digitally modeled and 3d printed the pieces I needed. This process proved to be challenging on a number of

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levels. The digital modeling was carried out in Rhinoceros 6, and itself wasn’t problematic.

The difficulty came from learning the eccentricities and limitations of the 3d printer.

I used the Anycubic Photon, an SLA DLP printer. The print quality was great, once I understood how to manage the many variables of file slicing, support generation, bed level and exposure settings for the particular brand of UV resin I chose to work with. I designed for a supply line based on 1/8� wooden dowels and a drain waste vent line of 3/4� wooden dowels. True to life plumbing situations would actually employ a range of sizes of DWV, with stepped combines to bridge between various sizes, but I chose to limit myself to one in the interest of simplifying both my design and build process, and creating more visual unity in the final project. As I said before, too much realism might draw more attention to the object and detract from the idea.

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It seems every iterative model process is a series of parallel explorations. The fittings were iterated a total of five times before I arrived at what seemed like a more accurate scale of fittings to pipes without exceeding the strength of the cured resin in assembly.

Finding the right adhesive to join wood to resin was another journey, with several varieties of cyanoacrylate and pva glue being tested before finally settling on the ease of hot glue. I was never satisfied with this solution, but it did make the construction process much faster, allowing me to complete 4 of the 5 models I intended to have by final deadline. Tandem to this process of learning from the construction was also an intuitive flow with the design itself. Allowed to speak, what would the plumbing say? Intent on breaking the wall plane, but still leaving room for human co-habitation with the plumbing meant there were still limits on where plumbing would be permitted and how it could move while still capable of performing its role. Approaching each individual model as a separate project, and drawing what I had learned from the previous one, meant the entire process was a journey with an uncertain destination. My intention had to remain focused, to bracket the work within the limits of the thesis, but the result was free to express in a very direct and visceral way.

Project 1 | Half Bath was a way of setting the ground from which the other models could grow. It was a test of concept, of the performance of the first iteration of fittings, and a practice run for the more complex modelling to follow.

Project 2 | Four Toilets was intended to be an aggressive disruption of the norm.

Here the subversive, critical premise would be expressed in a dramatic and reactionary fashion. I set out to create something uncomfortable, possibly jarring. I wanted to shake the viewer up. The second iteration of fittings leant themselves to a slightly more refined look at the level of connections, but the chaotic layout and message of the model itself lent itself a more forgiving assembly. Also, I began to observe how unstable the plumbing was completely divorced of the wall. It seemed that the wall was providing much needed structure and something would need to be introduced to mitigate the resultant instability of the liberated lines.

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Project 3 | Two Point Five Baths heralded the inclusion of the ground plane in the model space. This was something I had originally considered which was reinforced after a critique. Adding the ground plane brought a dimension of readability that was missing in the first two iterations, and including the fluorescent acrylic brought a glorious, seductive pop of color which made the model seem to glow. Working with acrylic, however, added another variable to the equation. Connections, both acrylic to acrylic and acrylic to wood, became much more important. Extruded planes made for stable carriers to hold the plumbing in suspension, but also required much more cautious measuring and cutting of pieces.

The digital models became crucial in determining the layout and cutting needs as well as generating the files to cut the acrylic. This model actually had to be cut twice, as mistakes in the layout of the first cutting file and misguided construction strategy called for an entire redesign. It was also at this time that I found a solution to issues of representation I had failed to resolve in the first two models. By presenting them on a completely black void, the models appeared less objectified as they had been photographed against backdrops and began to read more as ideas floating in an imaginative space.

Project 4 | Four Showers Three Sinks is easily the most complex and difficult built of the series. Taking what I had learned from the previous iterations, I chose two modules to extract and repeat: shower and sink. This represented both an interesting visual contrast in terms of scale and form as well as more peaceful compromise of plumbing to human co-habitation. Laying out shower and sink units and then using this layout as a puzzle to connect with supply and drain in the appropriate manner left room for all sort of imaginative solutions. Working in both plan view and elevations, with an eye to creating visual rhythms and celebrating the delicate filigree of lines while also encapsulating and creating space, it was on this model that I began to really get a feel for the potential of the project.

At this point I had generated five iterations of fittings, and this final iteration is in my mind the most refined and successful. The acrylic forms are closer to where I want them to be, although another iteration would be better to work out some of the issues I was uncovering with cutting, placement and material behavior.

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I would have loved to get another iteration or two before the deadline. There are components of fittings that I would add to the collection (multi-splits, drain caps, and shower traps come immediately to mind) and another iteration might have seen a greater degree of accuracy in measuring the cut lengths and fitting them into the acrylic supports. As with everything, practise makes perfect. Most of all I wonder, what the next model might have liked to say... Taken sequentially, the series started with a quiet complaint, which became a raucous rebellion, before settling on the desire to compromise and the beginning of a promising alliance. What other forms could have resulted from this exploration? What other things could have been expressed?

Dreama D. Johnson April 2019

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Bibliography Grondzik, Walter T. Mechanical and Electrical Equipment for Buildings. 11th ed.. ed.

Hoboken, N.J.: Hoboken, N.J. : Wiley, 2010.

Lerup, Lars. Planned Assaults : The Nofamily House, Love/House, Texas Zero. Montréal : Cambridge, Mass.: Montréal : Centre Canadian d’Architecture/Canadian Centre for Architecture ; Cambridge, Mass. : Distributed by the MIT Press, 1987.

Loos, Adolf. Spoken into the Void : Collected Essays, 1897-1900. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge, Mass. : Published for the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Chicago, Ill. and the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, New York, N.Y., by MIT Press, 1982.

Lupton, Ellen. The Bathroom, the Kitchen and the Aesthetics of Waste : A Process of Elimination. Edited by J. Abbott Miller and M. I. T. List Visual Arts Center. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge, Mass. : MIT List Visual Arts Center : Distributed by Princeton Architectural Press, 1992.

Penner, Barbara. Bathroom. London, England : Reaktion Books, 2013.

Sennett, Richard. Building and Dwelling : Ethics for the City. First American edition.. ed.: New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018.

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