OS House by Hsin Yeh

Housing, Home, and Content(s): OS House Hsin Yeh

Contents Studio Preface

Housing Home, and Content(s) Finding Home In: Site Finding Home for: Content(s) A House and Home

Precedent Research Material

Scene from the film “Her” Home Economics Maison à Bordeaux Maison de Verre Schroder House Mural Withdrawing Room The Art of Scent Domestic Astronomy Form and Function follow Climate HOURS - Own Nothing, Share Everything

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A Concept to Find Home for: <Concept>

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Finding Home In: Site

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Serial Approach

Consider the site through input and output Instructions applied to generate the site Process of generating the site

Finding Home For: Content(s) 19-24 User and operating system (OS) Process of generaing the contents Taxonomy Mid Semester Presentation

House and Home: OS House

Introduction The Design Process of generating the house Moment at 3:00AM

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Moment at 9:00AM Moment at 3:00PM HOUSE = home + home

A Critical Reflection on Contemporary Domesticity

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Preface Housing Home, and Content(s) The home may perhaps be the best avenue to explore “contemporary life”. That is, the convergence of human(s) in space, facilitated by the ideas, content(s) and containers of humanism, humanities and the human body. The house not only plays host to the physical human body, but all things that entertain the notion of humanism: thought, activity, ritual, signifying objects and spatial arrangements, this is where the house becomes home.

“Architecture houses. It is at home in - and provides a home for - philosophy [concepts and thought], aesthetics [cultural and material objects] and those discourses which are thought to describe it.”

Andrew Benjamin - Eisenman and the Housing of Tradition Philosophical, aesthetic and cultural reference will generate contextual frameworks that allow the home to find place, sustenance and the content(s). Here, architecture is considered as the in-between of thought and experience, where the house becomes a mediator between two parallel states, the conceptual and the material; revealing the unexpected, through the slippages, transitions and tension between ideas, content(s), user and space. This investigation will argue for the critical agency of architecture, evoking discourse and dialogue between ideas, disciplines, technologies and representations. The house produced will act as an agent for mediating, critiquing and navigating the limitations, possibilities and transferences between the conceptual and material. The project may become a critical survey, experiment or meditation between humanism, humanities and the human bodies. This is where architecture may be at home in - and provides a home for contemporary life.` i

Finding Home In: Site Context, Frame and Site Students will each be assigned a precedent concept: Simulation Simulacra Paranoiac Critical Method Salvador Rhizome Deconstruction Serialism

Jean Baudrillard Jean Baudrillard Dali Gilles Deleuze Jacques Derrida Sol Lewitt

They will spend the early stages of the semester exploring this precedent via the web, print and various other sources, collating and filtering information regarding this project into a presentation as model, image and text. This material will act as a brief; a plan, representing a place, to frame and materialise a set of thoughts establishing relationships between their respective ideas; its users, content and space, a contextual framework that houses the content(s) and design to come. This brief will establish a critical and abstract site for the rest of the semester, this may assume the form of a plane, field, sequence, surface, framework etc. - enabling students to position the ideas they choose to explore within a spatial context- setting the site for what they will inherently house in the next phase of the studio.

Finding Home For: Content(s) Users, Activities, Rituals, Events, Objects, Fixtures, Fittings and materialised content. Students will develop a taxonomy - A curated selection of material, content and objects that signify a particular value toward the thoughts, activities and rituals related to the ideas generated by the site in phase 1. This content will be housed in the design to come. Outcome: Students will produce a mixed media visual presentation (painting, photography, drawing, collage, rendering, film etc.) This visual representation will outline and detail a number of selected objects and unpack notions of connections, overlap, nodes, field, distance, proximity, edge etc. Successful outcomes should generate an abstract inventory list or taxonomy and a distribution plan through the use of an organisational / operational strategy. The success of this task will be outlined by the students ability to understand and communicate a clear and abstracted system of representation derivative and relational to the previous â&#x20AC;&#x153;siteâ&#x20AC;? task.

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A House and Home The house will augment the relationship between: Where architecture may be at home in - and provides a home for - contemporary life. The house produced will act as an agent for mediating, critiquing and navigating the limitations, possibilities and transferences between the conceptual and material, revealing the unexpected, through the slippages, transitions and tension between ideas, content(s), user and space. Here, students will begin to explore the use of materiality, program, tectonics, scale, junctions between the site of ideas and objects of content(s). Outcome: Students will design a “home” highlighting relationships between the context it is housed in and the content(s), users, activities and rituals it is home to. Projects will focus on the transference and meditation the home may play between the contextual and the material via three moments of the student’s choice. Here, students will explore the moments and their in-betweens with successful projects revealing the unexpected, through the slippages, transitions and tension between ideas, content(s), user and space. Successful projects will also develop a critical position on what “House” means, “Home” means and what it is to be at “home in” and at “home for.” The home may become a critical survey, experiment or meditation.

Precedent Research Material

Directed by Spike Jonze, 2013. The film follows the story of Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix), a man who develops a relationship with Samantha (Scarlett Johansson), an intelligent computer operating system personified through a female voice

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Jack Self, 2016. The British Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale. Home Economics presents how sharing can be a form of luxury and not a compromise. <Home Economics>

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Rem Koolhaas, 1994-1998, Bordeaux. A 3x3.5m elevator platform that moves freely between the three floors, becoming part of or transforming into lounge, kitchen, or office.

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Pierre Chareau + Bernard Bijvoet, 1932, Paris. The house uses various industrial and mechanical fixtures all contained inside the transparency and lightness of the faรงade. A rotating screen hides the private stairs from patients during the day. <Maison de Verre>

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Gerrit Rietveld, 1925, Utrecht. The collapsable walls upstairs were designed to provide the children with an option of opening the partitions for an open play space or closing them for private bedrooms.

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Diller Scofidio+Renfro, 2003, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. A dissident robot travels on a continuous track along the major partition walls of the galleries and sabotages the visual and acoustic isolation. <Mural>

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Diller Scofidio+Renfro, 1987, San Francisco. The installation is a series of progressively private spatial meditations: the property line—a legal order, etiquette—a social order, intimacy—a private order, narcissistic impulse—an internal order.

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Diller Scofidio+Renfro, 2012-13, Museum of Arts and Design, New York. Visitors are invited to lean into a series of twelve sculpted wall alcoves, triggering the release of a scented stream of air; in addition to scent, the organic wall surface pulses with sound and ghostly text projections. <The Art of Scent>

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Philippe Rahm architectes, 2009, Louisiana Museum, Denmark. The functional platforms are situated at the most suitable climatic conditions, such as temperature and humidity.

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Form and Function Follow Climate Philippe Rahm interviewed by Laurent Stalder

S: This mistrust of form transpires in another of your postulates. You don’t trace the paradigm shift of the 1990s back solely to the transition from “the physical” to “the physiological” but also to the transition from a concept of architecture as a problem of form to that of architecture as a performance issue. What do you understand by this? R: In the classical tradition, in the work of Vitruvius or Alberti, the emergence of form seems to be linked with harmony and symmetry and their relation to the human body. Then, in Modern architecture, form becomes the expression of function. It is the body that deforms space, the length of an arm that determines the size of a kitchen. In the 1990s, with the emergence of the minimalist “Swiss box”, the question of form became linked with materials, with their sculptural qualities and surface. For my part, I was no longer interested in the building envelope but in what it contains, no longer in the envelope’s matter but in that of space: in the void. My first projects were consequently very “informal”. Then, little by little, by investigating not only the chemical but also the physical characteristics of the air – the fact that warm air rises for example, and the displacement of humidity – I was able to generate a catalogue of forms determined by these conditions. Normally, the architect organises his plan to suit the proposed functions of a space and introduces a ventilation system only later. I asked myself if it might be possible to reverse this proposition, in such a way that form and function would follow the climate. In consequence, spaces would no longer be organised in accordance with functional principles but in terms of ventilation. The house would literally be designed on a current of air, going from dry to humid.

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Jack Self with Finn Williams and Shumi Bose, June 2016. Interior drawings from the publication, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Hours - Own Nothing, Share Everything

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<Hours>

HOURS - Own Nothing, Share Everything Jack Slef with Finn Williams and Shumi Bose, June 2016

Sharing is a particularly relevant concept in the design of housing because, unless the model is monastic, the home is always a space occupied by two or more people. Its use and resources have to be negotiated, which can become either a source of communality or conflict. When the atomic financial unit of the house is the bedroom (as in the shared house), the additional common spaces (such as a living room, kitchen or bathroom) can become highly contested and financialised. The amount one resident pays in relation to the others can produce a commercial hierarchy. But when the home itself is the whole financial unit (as with a single-family home), the negotiation of space is no longer driven by economic competition but solidarity. Every resident has an equal stake, and its overall success becomes a common concern. • • • • • • • • •

Sharing can be a luxury, not a compromise. The bed and sofa are converging: in 2014 the bed overtook the sofa for the first time as the most used piece of furniture in British homes. Our current economic model makes mass ownership impossible in the long run. Communal storage suggests new ways of sharing personal objects; a transparent structure questions our relationship with everyday domesticity. In a fair and just society, we will collectively own the sharing economy. British fashion designer J.W. Anderson has curated the clothes of a common wardrobe shared between households. The bed today is a place for production and reproduction, working and relaxing, socialising and sleeping. Each apartment possessing its own vacuum cleaner is neither necessary, nor environmentally responsible. When we combine our resources, the result is more than the sum of the parts.

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A Concept to Find Home for: Serial Approach The project started with generating a site through the concept of serialism. After looking through the works of Sol LeWitt and experimental architectural projects by Peter Eisenman and John Hejduk, I have decided to take serialism as a way of working to produce indefinite iterations that are all adhering to the same premise and intention of a design proposal. The indefinite iterations are able to respond to changes of objects or situations through time, while still be relevant to the design brief as all iterations came from the same premise.

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Sol LeWitt, 1972, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. All two-part combinations of blue arcs from corners and sides and blue straight, not straight and broken lines. <Wall Drawing #146>

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Finding Home In: Site Consider the site through input and output. The project started with generating a site through the concept of serialism. Serialism is defined as â&#x20AC;&#x153;the act of repeatedly committing the same offence and typically following a characteristic, predictable behaviour pattern.â&#x20AC;? The main purpose of serialism is to produce iterations of results that are processed through a predetermined rule. Sol Lewitt created serial art by transforming mathematical or linguistic instruction into drawings and sculptures. In his Serial Project I (ABCD), the original premise generates a series of cube and square at the centre of each other. This prompted me to investigate the relationship between objective input and materialised output. Peter Eisenman and John Hejduk have also addressed serialism in their work, creating new spatial potentials derived from objective and prescribed principles. Eisenman explored the different ways in which geometric iteration may create structures that remind people of their relationship to contents and context (space), while Hejduk investigated the different effects of tectonic relations on spatial experience. Therefore, I want to explore the relationship between input and output, and the process of forming space with a specific instruction. A set of specific instructions are applied to the cube-site and generated multiple dots that appear to be scattered inside the cube randomly, but is actually based on certain rules. The generated site is abstract enough to allow the resulting space to be indefinitely iterated and interpreted into anything desired. This ties back to the possibility of creating an adaptable domestic space.

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Instructions applied to generate the site. 1. Draw 3 arcs that start and end at the endpoints of the edges of a square. 2. Repeat step 1, but with endpoints & midpoints of the edges. 3. Repeat step 1, but with the midpoints of the edges. 4. Repeat these steps to every side of a transparent cube. 5. When viewing the cube from an outside point, the arcs from different sides appear to intersect each other. Mark the intersections as points. 6. Project the marked points back into the cube. 7. The intersections become floating points inside the cube. 8. A spherical device is installed at the locations of each point. 9. The devices are assigned to distribute either light or temperature conditions based on their distance from three diagonal lines drawn in the cube. Level 1: within 70mm - bright outside 70mm - dark Level 2: within 70mm - warm outside 70mm - bright Level 3: within 70mm - warm outside 70mm - cold 10. The conditions distributed by the devices change gradually through time.

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The diagrams show the step-by-step process of generating the site through the instructions. <Process of generating the site>

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Finding Home for Content(s) User and operating system (OS) The contents of the serialist site are found again in the relationship between input and output. Drawing from the analogy of the user and the operating system, the cube-site, as a whole, becomes the operating system, of which the internal space and conditions are being manipulated by the inputs of instructions. The process of transforming inputs into outputs is performed by a robotic arm, which acts autonomously with the signals sent from the CPU (Central Processing Unit) to construct the space. The robotic arm and the CPU act together as the hand and brain of the OS. The generation of the serialist contents is an investigation of human behaviour engaging with climatic conditions. In the site, there are two human users sharing the domestic spaces, while the OS is the mediating user that responds to and creates the relationship between the two human users. The dots generated on the site are materialised into devices that distribute conditions or functions by following predetermined instructions and transform the state of the site in various iterations. The OS reads the inputs from the atmospheric conditions and from the human users as they communicate their needs for activities in the house. In contemporary domestic living, it is important to consider how the use of technology can improve the atmospheric conditions of domestic spaces, and produce a more adaptable house. The indefinite iterations of the house also respond to changes through time, such as change of activities or the moving-in and moving-out of different human users. Hence, the OS creates a hyper-functional house where two users can share the space of a house, while their personal needs are met by the OS, allowing them to enjoy their separate homes, the zone of comfort and ease, under one shared-house.

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Bright

Warm

Dark

Cold

By continuing following the instructions, the dots within the site beome points of distribution of atmospheric conditions, including light and temperature. <Process of generating the contents>

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Taxonomy OPERATING SYSTEM (OS) Robotic Arm + CPU

Users input their demands through an application on their phones or tablets, and the messages are received and processed by the CPU, while the modification of the house according to these demands are carried out by the robotic arm.

DOT DEVICE The dots are devices that are capable of distributing six types of functions or conditions. Each dot is assigned to one type of function at one time and creates a set of climatic and functional conditions inside the cube. Water Electricity Heat Cool Fog Wifi p.21

HUMAN USERS The two users live together in the house and share the objects and space. They communicate with the OS to move the platforms around the house.

PLATFORM The platforms are customised to the usersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; needs and assembled by the robotic arm with furniture blocks.

RETRACTABLE SUPPORT The OS controls the retractable supports to slide in x, y, and z directions on the tracks around the walls, bringing the platforms to the needs of the users.

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House and Home: OS House Introduction The house design is driven by the critique of the contemporary sharedhouse typology and the integration of technology in contemporary living. As more people are moving to cities for the convenience of living, work, or leisure, urbanisation is in higher density than ever before. Therefore, the shared-house typology, which is often shared by people who didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know each other before they live together, has become more common in todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cities. Technology has developed rapidly in recent years, and reach a point where people are assisted by technology in almost everything they do, from work, leisure, to the climatic control of their houses. However, residential architecture has not changed much in terms of structure or function due to the long-lasting nature of buildings. Hence, it is important to imagine a new typology of a house that addresses the issues of shared-living space and incorporates technology into domestic activities of contemporary living.

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The Design The OS House is composed of two cube structures, the outer cube contains all the services and mechanism that serve the inner cube. The solid walls of the inner cube divide the inner living space and the outer service space, so users living inside are unable to see beyond the inner cube, except the lookout to the skylight and the robotic arm. The robotic arm, acting as the hand of the OS, receives messages that the human users input through their phones or tablets, and transforms the composition of the house according to usersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; needs. The robotic arm assembles platforms with furniture blocks and attaches them to a retractable support. Then, the OS controls the retractable supports to slide in x, y, and z directions on the tracks around the walls, bringing the platforms to the needs of the users. The dots are capable to distribute six types of functions: water, electricity, heat, cool, fog, and wifi. Each dot is assigned to one type of function at one time and creates a set of climatic and functional conditions inside the cube. The users move to locations, which have conditions suitable to their needs, by communicating with the OS to move the platforms. The moving platforms and the dot devices are able to create varying levels of private and public relationships, as well as providing services in different locations throughout the entire house.

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Moment at 3:00AM [Both users are sleeping on their own platform] < User 1 > _location: bed platform (x=7, y=7, z=4) _activity: sleeping _dot device_function: mist_electricity_water _number_of_blocks: 9 < User 2 > _location: platform_(x=3 ,y=2, z=4): _activity: sleeping _dot device_function: mist_electricity_water _number_of_blocks: 9 Boundary tested: _function: both users share the same atmospheric conditions for the same activity of sleeping _privacy: each user is on their own platform, and requires complete privacy for sleeping and going to the toilet, which is linked to the bed platform with a stair platform. •

This moment explores the tension between one’s privacy and the other’s privacy when two people share a house. The dots of blue create a fog around and between the two users to create a complete visual blockage, and the platforms are at either corner of the house.

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<3:00 AM Perspective>

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3:00AM

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<3:00AM Plan>

<3:00AM Section>

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Moment at 9:00AM [Both users are on the dinning platform, and they each came from their own lounge platform] < User 1 > _location: dining platform_(x=7, y=8, z=4) _activity: eating _dot device_function: wifi_heat _number_of_blocks: 24 < User 2 > _location: dining platform_(x=5 ,y=8, z=4): _activity: eating _dot device_function: wifi_heat _number_of_blocks: 24 Boundary tested: _function: both users share the same atmospheric conditions again, for the same activity of eating _privacy: they both move from their individual lounge platform to the dining platforms eating breakfast and socialising with each other over a table with foods. They are in a social interaction and share a boundary together. â&#x20AC;˘

This moment explores a social relationship between the two users, where they move to the same location to engage with each other, with the help of the sliding supports.

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<9:00AM Perspective>

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9:00AM

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<9:00AM Plan>

<9:00AM Section>

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Moment at 3:00PM [User 1 is on the study platform, and user 2 is on the bathroom platform] < User 1 > _location: lounge platform_(x=5, y=7, z=5) _activity: studying _dot device_function: electricity_wifi _number_of_blocks: 20 < User 2 > _location: bathroom platform_(x=4, y=3, z=2) _activity: bathing _dot device_function: mist_water_heat _number_of_blocks: 10 Boundary tested: _function: the two users are doing different activities with different atmospheric and functional needs. User 1 is studying, while user 2 is bathing. _privacy: user 2 requires a complete privacy from user 1, while user 1 is in an open space. â&#x20AC;˘

This moment explores the tension between a private space and a public space. The dots of blue create visual blockage around user 2, while the platforms are located at the highest and lowest of the house to create spacial separation through height difference.

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<3:00PM Perspective>

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3:00PM

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<3:00PM Plan>

<3:00PM Section>

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HOUSE = home + home The OS House, with the outer and inner cubes, is a house, a place that is meant for domestic activities. The human users occupy the space within the house as their homes, a place of ease, comfort and privacy. Depending on the activities and interactions between the users, the two homes are sometimes separated or combined, just like the usersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; relationship. The OS facilitates this hyper-functional house according to the users and allows shared-house typology to work through changes of time.

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A Critical on Reflection on Contemporary Domesticity The OS House project explores the possibility of a hyper-functional house in contemporary domesticity. As the designer, I drive the project with the critique of the shared-house typology and the integration of technology with domestic activities, as I consider these two topics significant in the way people live today. People don’t necessarily live with their close family anymore, but live in shared-house/apartment, as their spontaneous lifestyles require a more flexible type of living. Technology is involved in people’s daily activities, and the extent of this involvement is still growing. Instead of using the OS on a phone or computer, I imagine an OS for a house. The OS is not only a representation of technology, it is also functional and practical, as it creates privacy for human users and moves them around the house for their individual needs. With the access to advanced technology, it is important to re-imagine a house that is relevant to the way we live today. The concept of serialism has helped this re-imagination, as the indefinite iterations produced by following a premise, which is the project’s aim, allow the house to respond to changes in users’ activities and relationships throughout the time of a day. A house only becomes a home when the tension and interaction between different people are mediated appropriately.

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