FOREWORD To humans, dwelling is a necessity. A basic requirement in which centralises around the act of inhabiting, to connect ourselves, though temporarily, with a place, a site on the earth which belongs to us, and to which we belong to. “The act of inhabitation requires an ally”.1 When called upon, we capture the image of these allies in their natural state within a contemporary home. Upright objects, things, mess, and gardens. Whether intentional or not, the amalgamation of these allies serves as an extension to humans. Objects of our daily lives exist as imperfect displays of domestic ownership. Objects that ensure homes are the manifestation of human presence that thrives in the environment it is encapsulated by, and vice versa. The contemporary home has the ability to remain imperfect as a solution to inhabit place [site]. The ability to appear incomplete, yet complete. To live a domestic lifestyle that encapsulates the necessity to provide spaces in which humans can detach themselves from the vertigo of modern life.2 These spaces elicit ambiguity, finished or not; the garden, unattended to, yet, domesticates the site in which we inhabit. The domestic human, becomes the architect, curating a relationship and identity that captures a tensioned “dirty image” 3 of the vestiges of the site’s past and its clinically pristine neighbours. Yet such acts allow our allies [our mess of objects] to inhabit the home [place] and give us a thrill of a slap to hear the praise of awkwardness, shadows, dirtiness, and the site’s layered under-toned values.4
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Tanizaki, J., 2001. In Praise of Shadows. Vintage, pp.1-2. Shinohara, K., 2011. Kazuo Shinohara, Casas Houses. 2G, pp 8. Campkin, B & Dobraszczyk, P., 2007. Architecture and Dirt Introduction, The Journal of Architecture, pp. 347-351. Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows, pp. 1-2 5
