A Machine For Living: Re-Provoking the Slow House in Contemporaneity
Recipient of the 2023 James A. Britton Memorial Awards Citation for Excellence in Thesis Design
ARC 505 + 508 - Thesis Design and Research
Primary Advisor - Iman Fayyad
Secondary Advisors - Kyle Miller, Edgar Rodriguez
Scope - Canonical Works, Representation, Domesticity, and Ritual
Location - North Haven Point, Long Island, New York
Date - Fall 2022 - Spring 2023
Diller + Scofidio’s “Slow House” began construction in 1989, but was stopped shortly after breaking ground due to the clients own financial limitations. The project took on a new life through its representation when later debuted for a lecture at Columbia in 1991, which ultimately led to it’s success and acclimation. The site still remains undeveloped, and for the argument of this thesis, the palimpsest of the original construction still exists on the site, making it readily available for a new provocation of what the home could be.
Similar to the ways that OMA’s exhibition of “La Casa Palestra” offered new readings of the Barcelona Pavilion, this thesis aims to be a contemporary counterpart to the original Slow House.
The plan of the Slow House follows two curves, and move the occupant from the automobile to the view as seen in picture window juxtaposed to the television screen. It is simply “a means to an end.”
Deforming the original plan changes the relationship between the occupant and the home. A number of possible homes and narratives emerge through iterating the parameters of the home, making the design of Diller + Scofidio one of many that could be derived.The ultimate one (the provocation of this thesis) becomes enveloped in on itself so that the occupants are confronted with being trapped in the cycle of their inhabitance, longing for an escape. It becomes “a means with no end,” or “a means to an end that never ends.”
The home becomes a composite of its history. And the home itself offers the potential for multiplicity in experiences, or a non-singular narrative. The two homes thus engage in conversation with one another. This provocation of the Slow House in 2023 is in many ways both a commentary and critique of that from 1991. Their engagement with one another becomes amplified in understanding contemporary domesticity. Through their comparison, the two designs re-invigorate the potential for what the home could be on this vacant site, both in the past and in the present.
primaryantenna+surveillancecamera
tonormalizethatwhichliesbeyondthedomestic
videocamera
counter-weightstair
deck
picturewindow
televisionchimneystack
skylightoverbed
secondaryscreen
primaryscreen
secondaryantenna
extensionofthe‘picturewindow’ denyingtheview anti-climacticaperature
skylightoverbath
faststair
skylightoverbed
mobilediningtable
dining deck
point of ‘slowing’ the view
galley kitchen point of ‘revealing’ the view
skylight over sink
80’countertop
eatinkitchenfortwo
the‘void’
slowstair fastcurve slow‘knifeedge’ curve
pivotingfrontdoor
acceleratingtowardsfastcurve
todreamunderthenightsky
therealmof thenuclearfamily
never depicted or modeled ignored within the experiential space between the ‘door’ and the view’
the realm of the 20th century housewife
the point of no return
to wash away your sins
theexaggerationofdomesticelements
thepointofnoreturn
acceleratingdeceleratingcurve curve
deceleratingthe‘space’betweenwhichoppressestheviewtheexperiencetowardsthe‘picturewindow’ambiguousboundarythatconfrontsthevisitor
themeanstotheend
a house that ... a house that opens to a view a house that is the view a house that denies the view
a family of four lives in their UWS row house year-round, they all mediate between the heirarchy of views from the street to the garden
a group of three people all leave to their ubiquitous jobs by day, and are bottle-necked back into their own shared space by night
a pair of artists built their house around a scenic landscape, their home is only concerned with bringing the natural wold inside
a working professional who spends more time outside of their home than within it, primarily mediates between the threshold and the outside world
a house that shifts the view a house that slows the view a house that distorts the view a house that delays the view
a jealous individual occupies a home adjacent to that of their dreams, and looks out onto the view that they wish was their own
a late 19th century hetero-normative couple resides here in their time off from the city in a space that is ‘between places’
a film collector believes that the ‘real world’ falters to that of the one onscreen, as a result her conception of the world around her must shift
a twenty-something male ‘edges’ himself in every aspect of life, making everything a drawn-out process before the final ‘release’
a house that subverts the view a house that re-orients the view a house that amplifies the view a house that focuses the view
a solitary individual in their own habitat that does not concern itself with the outside world, and slowly returns to the world as they know it
a polyamourous throuple lives in a house that contorts itself to please each the dynamics of their relationships with one another
a voyerist who ways to watch the whole world from the comfort of their home, has a panoramic view right from their living room
a multi-generational family faces many issues with space, and as a result their interior occupation must stretch to fit all of their needs
a house that subsides the view a house that re-defines the view a house that confounds the view a house that is the view of the house that is a view which shows the ...
a non-monogomous couple agree that no other romantic interests can be in their home; they forget their lovers once they walk in the door
a person who lives outside their desired location, due to financial limitations, stares back at the place where they hope to live and work
a theorist who speculates on what it means to be reflexive, embodies the notion of looking back at the path that they came from
a couple with different interests live together: one who is content with their cyclical routine, the other who longs for something new
Long, slick and slender, tickles where it’s tender. What is it?
Slick and slender, gives the harshest blows and can make you say “OH!” What is it? A tongue.
A housewife answers the phone. The survey taker asks, “What is the country’s biggest problem, apathy or ignorance?”
A middle-aged man looks at his phone screen. The number is not save.
Slamming down the receiver, she answers, “I don’t know and I don’t care!”
He whispers to himself, “I don’t know and I don’t care.”
“ My husband and I have a give and take relationship. I give and he takes.”
“My husband and I have a give and take relationship. I give and take as I please.”
A husband keeps his lover’s clothing in the closet, yet his wife suspects nothing. Why?
A man and his partner are not able to keep track of who’s clothes belong to who anymore.
His lover is a man.
Between themselves and the occasional third, they think it’s all fair game.
What speaks but never says a word?
What depicts the real world but never shows it? Social media.
A woman asks her psychiatrist, “My husband only seems to want to use the dining room table for sex. What should I do?
A man asks his psychiatrist, “My husband only seems to want to have sex in the kitchen. What should I do?
The psychiatrist responds, “I would stop eating in bed.”
The psychiatrist responds, “I would be happy he finds something there appetizing.”
Look through it one way to see all you want, look through it another to see what you shouldn’t. What is it?
Look through it one way to see all you can escape to, look through it another to see what is inescapable. What is it? A window.
What swallows flesh at night and spits it out in the morning? The front door.
What swallows your dreams by day and drains you of any at night? Your job.
What is the difference between walking up the stairs and looking up the stairs?
What is the difference between running down the stairs and walking up them?
In one you step up the stairs, in the other you stare up the steps.
The former you are escaping to reality. The latter you are returning from it and regretting having left.
Prattsville Art and Community Center Rebuilding a Rural Community in the Catskills
in collaboration with Thitaree Suwiwatchai
Selected as Runner-Up for the King + King Jury Prize in the 2022 School of Architecture’s ARC 409 Integrated Studio Awards
ARC 409 - Integrated Design Studio
Instructor - Amber Bartosh
Scope - Cultural Center and Rural Rehabilitation
Location - Prattsville, NY
Date - Spring 2022
This project seeks to be both a humble, yet ambitious, reinvigoration of the small town of Prattsville, a community in the rural Catskills with a history of catastrophic floods, through intervening in the existing Art Center and Residency. The design is emblematic of four central themes: timber resources, flood mitigation, reconfigurable plans, and vernacular construction.
While the timber resources from previous generations has been depleted, new technologies allow for it to bring new life into the region with easily ready labor and craftsmen.
The rehabilitation effort requires new construction build 4 feet above grade, which this project expresses by cantilevering the whole project, and still allowing the ground to flood.
The siting and programming of the center would need to accommodate various needs for visitors, exhibitions, events, and more. To remediate this, there is customizable furniture and operable fenestrations integrated into the design, allowing for the spaces to perform transiently, and adapt to the site and its users.
Lastly, the timber construction is conceived of being constructed at both the residential scale, indicative of the domestic and rural setting, and a larger service or institutional scale, formally expressed as a type of barn construction that is not foreign to the context of the site. Those construction scales differentiate the program between the intimate site of the cafe/community center and artist residence, and the grander site of the exhibition and performance spaces.
The result is an engaging and multi-scalar, community focused design campus in Prattsville, which encapsulates the aspirations of the present, and bringing them into a grand scheme for growth in the future.
A Memorial and Contemplation Garden
Constructing Spaces of Protest after George Floyd
A tomb for George Floyd that is encapsulated in a monument for all the past vicitms of police brutality towards people of color from centuries of systemic racism and oppression
Instructor - Richard Rosa
Scope - Memorial and Protest Space on the National Mall
Location - Washington, D.C.
Date - Fall 2020
Located within the rich and historical fabric of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., this project proposes the addition of a new monument on the mall. This project tasks one to navigate between the intricacies of private and public forums of funerary architecture, tombs, and memorials, in a highly politicized setting.
In this proposal, the memorial is conceptualized in the memory of George Floyd, who was killed by Minneapolis police on the 25th of May of 2020, sparking nation-wide protests within the days following, and reigniting the BLM movement in the middle of a pandemic.
This memorial, bearing the weight of all of the oppression and injustices that culminated in Floyd’s death, takes a pure volumetric form that is reminiscent of the surrounding memorials on the National Mall, and collapses the internal structure, scarring and deconstructing the very ideals of a perfect past that the surrounding institutions impose. The result is a turbulent and obstructive internal world, that the visitor must circumnavigate in order to complete their voyage through this escape from the Mall.
It takes occupants into a walled-in collective amphitheater, a stage similar to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, then through an archive of all the documented victims of police brutality, which leads them directly beneath the tomb for George Floyd itself. This monument takes the visitor through and into its broken ground and framework, beneath the suspended tomb of George Floyd, then up into an idealized contemplative garden - a mirrored room in the sky void of context and a resting point from the turmoil of the history that lies in the journey back down.
ARC 307 - Political Studio
Monticello Artist Residency
The Legacy of Thomas Jefferson’s Estate
A multifunctional live/work space for art-activists, that also contributes to the existing site by adding new exhibitions and perspectives
ARC 407 - Visiting Critic Studio
Instructor - Max KuoScope - New Addition to a Site of Early Democratic Architecture in the U.S.
Location - Charlottesville, VA
Date - Spring 2021
Located on Jefferson’s own estate, this new project is an exploration in the contemporaneity of the historical perspectives and agency on the site. The project is activated through the manipulation of the front facade and the resulting impact on the project. The front facade of the new addition, that facing Monticello, appears as a monolithic and institutional project of the same precedent language; it is rotated and broken, with an internal gold facade offset to distinguish the activation of it on the interior.
The broken front facade causes the monolithic form to break into three wings, that rotate and create interstitial spaces made from internal volumes that then open outwardly. These new facades are projected images of a neoclassical facade, that creates misalignments an impressions of misreadings of the context in their new exteriority. The back facade, wrapping around Mulberry Row, appears as a collage of misconstrued volumes, both as material, and image, collapsed on each other.
As the visitor transverses the site, and around Mulberry Row, one is granted a new plurality for the site to be renegotiated in its highly politicized and controversial history. It is the occupant’s own prerogative to discover and position themself to gain a new perspective of the site, allowing for the possibility of a new reading of Monticello, without visually imposing on it or the landscape.
This project simultaneously reinforces the site and de-monumentalizes any singular perspective on the site; the project seeks not to answer the totality of the site, but instead offer the potential for discovery and new activism, both in the past and in the future for the site.
Miscellaneous Images, Ideas, Models, More
