A MACHINE FOR LIVING: Re-Provoking the Slow House in Contemporaneity

A MACHINE FOR LIVING

re-provoking the Slow House in contemporaneity

Edgar Rodriguez

Kyle Miller

Iman Fayyad

+ notes

0.0 on Thesis Preface

The work to follow is the culmination of research and design work produced by Russell (RJ) Harman, at Syracuse University’s School of Architecture, to be considered for Thesis, alongside the Britton Memorial Awards Thesis Prize Competition.

The work was conducted for ARC 505 and ARC 508 courses during the Fall of 2022 and Spring of 2023 under the advisement of Assistant Professor Iman Fayyad, Associate Dean / Associate Professor Kyle Miller, and P/T Instructor Edgar Rodriguez.

Students must complete Thesis to fulfill the requirements for graduation in both the B. Arch. Undergraduate program. It is an opportunity to individually engage ideas and disciplinary questions that are compelling and merit deeper exploration than students may not have had time to previously pursue. It is the beginning of establishing expertise in a subject area, and may lay the groundwork for further study in other academic and professional environments.

The purpose of ARC 508 is to develop and apply design techniques appropriate to the thesis project. For every student, research, writing, analysis, speculation, and design are continuous and interrelated activities pursued during the thesis semester.

The process requires refined claims, strategies, sources, parameters, and aims constructed in ARC 505; complete descriptive, analytical, and projective work that supports the development of architectural knowledge necessary to complete the thesis project.

0.1 on the Home Introduction

The basis of this research is derived from an interest in domestic rituals, and the role that they play within the home, and more specifically within the canonical home. Through an investigation into numerous canonical works designed primarily over the last century (most of which were conceived within the western world), this study is founded on the ability for architecture to disseminate pervasive ideas, in both society and discourse.

The choice to investigate canonical homes hinges on the ability to dissect the question of whether or not one believes that the rituals of the inhabitants dictate the design of the home, or rather that the design of the home sponsors (potentially new) rituals. One could argue either, and there are numerous examples within our discourse that could facilitate either belief.

The canonical house is a case study into this question of domesticity and ritual within the design of the home. The intimate site of the home has often served as a “testing ground” for social, cultural, and political agendas, thus favoring that it sponsors ‘new’ rituals for its inhabitants. 01 Those issues integral to the canonical home are central to the ideologies and operations of society at large, by dismantling/reinforcing/questioning topics of family structure, privacy, identity, religion, routine, technology, etc.

This thesis takes the position that domestic ritual dictating design and design sponsoring ritual are not mutually exclusive, and can simultaneously exist, while still favoring the latter option as a point through which to provoke design.

Casa Malaparte, Adalberto Libera, Capri, Italy, 1928 Villa Stein, Le Corbusier, Garches, France, 1926

Villa Savoye, Le Corbusier, Poissy, France, 1928

Farnsworth House, Mies van der Rohe, Plano, IL, 1945-51

Villa Tugendhat, Mies van der Rohe, Brno, Czech Republic, 1930

Schroder House, Gerrit Rietveld, Utrecht, Netherlands, 1924

Müller House, Adolf Loos, Prague, Czech Republic, 1929-30

Skybreak House, Team IV, Radlett, England, 1966

House VI, Peter Eisenman, Cornwall, CT, 1975

T House, Simon Ungers, Wilton, NY, 1988-95

Villa Dall’Ava, Rem Koolhaas, Paris, France1984-91

Wall House II, John Hedjuk, Groniugen, Netherlands, 1973

Winton Gues House, Frank Gehry, Steele Co., MN, 1982-87

Gehry’s House, Frank Gehry, Santa Monica, CA, 1978

Cordoba House, Emilio Ambasz, Seville, Spain, 1975

Maison à Bordeaux, Rem Koolhaas, Bordeaux, France, 1994-98

Blue House, Herzog and de Meuron, Oberwill, Switzerland, 1979-80

Double House, MVRDV, Utrecht, Netherlands, 1997

Möbius House, UNStudio, Het Gooi, Netherlands, 1993-98

2-4-6-8 House, Morphosis, Venice, CA, 1978

Small House, Kayuzo Sejima, Tokyo, Japan, 1999-2000

Miller House, Jose Oubrerie, Lexington, KY, 1988-92

Slavin House, Greg Lynn, [model], 2006

Torus House, Preston Scott Cohen, Old Chatham, NY, 1988-89

Slow House, Diller + Scofidio, Long Island, NY, 1989-91

on Contemporary Ideas for the Home Case Studies

Four case studies were selected to be the primary subject of investigation. Those four houses were the Miller House ‘87 by Jose Oubrerie, Maison à Bordeaux ’98 by OMA, the Möbius House ’98 by UNStudio, and the Slow House ‘91 by Diller + Scofidio.

Each of these houses posses some progressive idea that disseminated throughout the design of the home; those ideas about the instability of the nuclear family, the complexity of separation and mobility, the continuity of the daily routine, and the modality of a decentralized home, respectively, all become emblematic of their conception and design.

Though within practice, we as architects are able to test radical and innovative ideas through representation, rather than through the lived experiences of the inhabitants. Our speculation, and formulation of the operations of space, resides within the bounds of our ability to transcribe those ideas in our drawing/representational techniques.

These four houses all have their own set of representational linguistics, so to say, that is both characteristic of their practices, but also, and more importantly, emblematic of the central ideas and topics that they are designed to facilitate.

The Miller House’s plan formal plan shows its segregation and separation of different programing through its structure.

Maison à Bordeaux’s worm’s-eye axon depicts the accessibility and hierarchy of the house throughout each of its floors.

The Möbius House’s unrolled interior elevation walks through the sequentiality of daily life.

The Slow House’s plan and serial sections overlay to reveal the speed and operation throughout its form to privilege the reveal of the TV screen juxtaposed the ‘picture window.’

Above:

Figure 4. Slow House Drawing Apparatus, courtesy of MOMA.

Upper Left: Figure 1. Second Level Plan of the Miller House, redrawn.

Middle Left: Figure 2. Worms-eye Axonometric of Maison à Bordeaux, redrawn.

Bottom Left: Figure 3. Unrolled Interior Elevation of the Möbius House, redrawn.

Precedent

As apart of the seventeenth Milan Triennial in 1986, Rem Koolhaas and the Office of Metropolitan Architecture, were invited to create an exhibition that dealt with the theme of the “body-building home.”02 Dealing with the connotation of ‘modern architecture’ as being “lifeless, empty, [and] puritanical,” the conception of the exhibition became centered around the re-invigoration and re-presentation of this period of architecture in a new sense. 03 The exhibition was designed around manipulating Mies’ plan of the Barcelona Pavilion by bending it on a curve, and thus re-invigorating the modern design (Figure 5/6). The reception of this was one that spurred interest into hidden readings within modern architecture, and countered the ways in which practice was pushing away from it.

An early exercise into the Mies’ Farnsworth House can be seen on the right, which was an attempt to re-invigorate and re-provoke modern architecture, but in a domestic sensibility (Figure 7). The result is one that perverts the context of the found object in a light similar to the history of Oubrerie’s Miller House. The house is collaged here into an ubiquitous suburban landscape, in this case in Belair at Bowie, in Maryland, which was a residential development constructed around the same time. While the building currently has its own siting issues, due to mostly environmental factors, this new siting and positioning of the home poses a new set of issues. The classical principles and modernist style of this “glass house” are directly contrasted by the alienating suburbanity. The arrangements of the nuclear family houses are contrasted with a simple and isolated volume, which disrupts the very notion of the nuclear family unit.  Gone is any sense of privacy or identity to the home, and the home no longer becomes one that is understood as being designed as a part of its landscape, but instead forms a tension between it and the new landscape. The defamiliarization of the iconic building allows for new potentials for what domesticity is, while also opening it to critique.

While this collage does not deal with the formal manipulation of an iconic project, as in La Casa Palestra, it does deal with a contextual juxtaposition that makes the observer, and visitor, view the project differently. It is this tension and derangement of what we know to be ‘true’ of these canonical projects that opens them up to new life within contemporary discourse. This tension and manipulated contexts will serve as a precedent for how this thesis seeks to enter architectural discourse.

Figure 5. La Casea Palestra, courtesy of OMA.

Figure 6. Plan of La Casea Palestra, courtesy of OMA.

Figure 7. Photo-collage of the Farnsworth House in Suburbia.

1.0 on One Practice

Diller + Scofidio, + the Slow House ‘91

Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio’s reputation proceeds them with a number of works interested in the performative and conceptual limitations of architecture, and beyond. Their body of work is very evident of their success, but their earlier works, in particular, were evident of their ability to work on smaller projects with a radical and unconventional sensibility with regards to the potential of architecture.

One of their most well known, and emblematic projects of their early works, is the 1989-91 Slow House. (Figures 8,9) It’s proliferation within architectural discourse, in part stems from the fact that it only ever existed through representational means, making its conceptual design more apparent. The project itself, which I referred to as the “1989/91 Slow House” as opposed to the “1989-91 Slow House,” indicates a distinction in the way in which the house came to be, from a design project to an experimental one.

What is documented of the 1989 project describes a vacation home that was commissioned for an art investor who’s wanted a house with a view.

04 Not long after construction began and the foundations had been poured, the project had run out of funding due to a downturn in the art market.05

A crucial aspect of this project deals with understanding it both as an independent object, as well as a site-specific design. The house was designed at a nondescript location in North

Upper Left: Figure 8. Cover of the 1991 PA Awards, showing serial sections of the Slow House. Upper Right: Figure 9. page 89 of the 1991 PA Awards, showing the Slow House and Jury Lower Left: Figure 10. Studio Portraits of DIller + Scofidio fort the 1991 PA Awards

Lower Right: Figure 11. Site Collage of the Undeveloped site in North

Haven, Long Island. Through using varied resources, the location of the undisclosed foundation and palimpsest can be determined to be a 2 acre plot of land on the shore, near Gleason Point at the North-Western-Most part of the the village in Suffolk County, and looks West onto Noyack Bay (Figure 11).

The remnants of the 1989 Slow House are unknown, although for the arguments of this thesis, remain in the untouched palimpsest from the incomplete construction three decades ago, and still survive to this day. While the remnants of the palimpsest and foundation from the construction period in 1989 is unknown, it can be assumed that there is some evidence of this object from the past that exists in this undeveloped site today.

On October 24th, 1990, the project was debuted as apart of a lecture at Columbia University that expanded on the project in a more performative lens. 06 This lecture, which debuted a series of drawings and models in multi-media presentation explored the project in a more conceptual light.

The project was also selected for the Progressive Architecture Award in 1991, in which the jury (consisting of Rem Koolhaas alongside Ralph Johnson, Adele Naudé Santos, and Samuel Mockbee) judged the project in its ability to portray its ideas through its means of representation.

1.1 on Readings + Secondary Readings Analysis

The conception of the house is born out of the idea of the vacation, or secondary home. This place, which Diller + Scofidio define, is one that is emblematic of three different screens, or realities: the car windshield, the TV, and the ‘picture window.’ 07 These apertures all are ways in which our experience is mitigated into life during the twentieth century. The car windshield is the modality through which we move through the world; the tv screen is the site at which we enter the ‘virtual world;’ the picture window is the opening through which the world outside our legal bounds enters the home.

The conception of this home is one that deals with mitigating place and destinations. While being simultaneously emblematic and radical for its conception of the home in 1989/91, the Slow House operates at a number of levels to explore the relationship between media and screens.

The entrance to the home is one without a facade; in fact there is no true facade of the home. The home is in essence a device itself, who’s space is rather operating on the movement between places. The front door is a pivoting door that swings on its neutral axis along its two-story opening.

The entrance to the home is a pivoting door that entraps the visitor within its two-story opening. It’s massive lever and operations minimize the journey towards the home, and the forced perspective of the growing home behind is one that aggrandizes the stature of the contemporary home, or rather the vacation home as it was conceived in 1989/91.

The visitor (as the house was not designed as a primary residence, thus there is no static occupant), is confronted by a ‘knife edge’ of some ambiguous wall that cuts the entrance in two. 08 This is an operative device that not only divides program and movement within the home, but contrasts the ability to use and mediate the house in a perspectival sense. The ‘knife edge’ contradicts the ability for one to perceive the space of the house, and is optically redundant, forcing movement to either the left or right of the divide.

The knife-edge is an anti-perspectival architectural element which is divisive in it’s subdivision of the home. The ambiguity of it’s very apparent confrontation is one that discredits the visitor’s preconceptions of what the [vacation] home should be. By dividing the home into equal parts, the two delineating curved walls are the only element that allow for a hierarchy of space, which is inherently the point. To the right lies a ascent towards something beyond what the eyes can see, to the left a long corridor towards an unknown.

The two sides of the home are essentially two curves with different radii, the inner curve being smaller than that on the outer (the south and north walls respectively). The outer wall, which is the side that departs from the entrance up the slow stair, is too called the ‘decelerating [slow] wall,’ thus making the inner wall the ‘accelerating [fast] wall.’ The speeds at which these walls operate mobility within the home is directly related to programming and the systematic fragmentation of views. The path down the ‘fast curve’ towards the private bedrooms and bathrooms, is one divided and segmented by a number of pivoting doors and apertures that break up the view of the scenic beyond the housepreventing the grandeur of the view through the fast paced sequence through the house. The path up the slow stairs and along the ‘slow wall’ is one that distorts and prevents any direct viewing through the ‘picture window,’ making the movements and operations a further implementation of ‘slowing’ the view to the visitor.

Each of the two curves delineates from the front door and open towards the ‘picture window.’ From the entrance to the home, the speed of each of the walls would be nearly imperceptible. The sectional relationship between each of the curves, though, is not equal, with the southern [fast] wall remaining the same slope and relative proportions throughout the sequence through the home. The northern [slow] wall, though, begins to encroach in its section throughout the plan, so that it too begins to slow the amplification of the vertical space in approaching the ‘picture window,’ which in turn slows the view, while also directly changing the aperture through which the ‘picturesque’ is made visible.

The ‘picture window’ is one that Diller + Scofidio describe as “the escape into a proprietary scenic space… measured by market value.” 09 It is both the most desired object within the home (a screen that depicts an idealized version of the world) and the device that mediates the division of the domestic realm from that which is beyond our own control.

The ‘picture window’ in the Slow House is one that gives the visitor the only direct view out from the home, and was the only request of the clients in commissioning the home. The floor-to-ceiling screen that emerges out of this facilitates that the idealized view is also a technological and active one.

Mounted from the wall is a television screen that depicts the view, as recorded by the antenna overlooking the view from the house, which has the ability to show a controlled view of the natural world. 10 This view can simultaneously show that which can be seen from the ‘picture window’ itself, as well as controlled to “pan, zoom, or [record]” the view, and thus making it artificial and augmented depiction of the natural world that is brought into the home.11

The television screen, which was a dialectical image to that seen through the ‘picture window,’ is one that was a defining characteristic of the nuclear family unit. It was an allencompassing view of the outside world, just as the ‘picture window’ had historically served prior to the introduction of newer media technologies. Their comparison and interwoven narratives to domestic ritual is one that amplifies the importance of each in designing the intimate site of the home, regardless of what image can be seen through either screen.

primaryantenna+surveillancecamera

tonormalizethatwhichliesbeyondthedomestic

videocamera

counter-weightstair

deck

picturewindow

televisionchimneystack

extensionofthe‘picturewindow’

secondaryscreen

primaryscreen

secondaryantenna

denyingtheview

skylightoverbed

skylightoverbath

faststair

skylightoverbed

mobile dining table

dining deck

point of ‘slowing’ the view

galley kitchen point of ‘revealing’ the view

skylight over sink

80’countertop

eatinkitchenfortwo

the‘void’

slowstair

slow‘knifeedge’ curve

fastcurve

pivotingfrontdoor

anti-climacticaperature

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

fragmented

sequence

disjunct pathway

extremelyslowstair

viewofthejourneythere

exaggeratedentrance

stillaslowstair....

butan anticlimaticone

over-correctedform

straight stair

a start that almostbecomes theend

confusedorientation

enlarged view

2.0 on Plasticity + Deformation Form + Function

The form of the home designed by Diller + Scofidio is one that performs as an antiperspectival apparatus.

“The form of the house derives from a distorted model of perspective in which the eye of the spectator is situated at the apex of cone of vision.” 12

Through an analytical study of the ways in which this (anti-)optical device performs, there was an investigation into the distorting and redrawing of the plan of the home through both parametric functions as well as manual manipulations. These deformed, or perverted plans, are ones that show new readings of the elements of the interior, and the results that then ensue are ones that read each of those elements as performatively different from their original intentions. These distortions both re-orient and re-situate the viewer, and ‘other’ the plan of the house, so that it can be understood not solely as a ‘found object’ from the past.

2.1 on Occupation Form Finding

The work that follows is one that takes the notion of the home, and the narrative within it, and makes it anecdotal. The home, and the model for those that reside inside, are both hyperspecific, and completely ubiquitous within the indeterminate and varied realities that exist within the contemporary world.

These ‘homes’ are ones that concern themselves with a view, and the route that leads to it. The ways in which the geometric and formal organization facilitate that ultimate discern the type of inhabitant that it will acquire.

This play on the work of Diller + Scofidio offers ways in which it can provide new formalities and iterations of voices and provocations. It inserts the ability for the project to live on today, as well as be accompanied by other counterparts.

Conversely, this work also de-monumentalizes the original Slow House by asserting the premise that it could be one of many designs that could exist within the contemporary. The design is thus nonsingular and multifaceted, offering more models for contemporary domesticity than simply that which was initially conceived. This too offers the potential for this thesis to then take some of the notoriety from the original design in amplifying a ‘parody’ of it.

The ultimate ‘contemporary home’ shown is the provocation of this thesis, that aims to set itself up as a counterpart to the original Slow House from 1991, but now in 2023. The two plans, with different formal constraints and domestic sensibilities, are set to the same standard, shown on an array of possible outcomes for what this home could become. They both exist simultaneously in their representations of what the home can be, neither constructed, and in constant dialog with one another in trying to ascertain any sort of clarity on what the limitations of this project truly are.

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

Diller + Scofidio’s aptly named “Slow House” (91)

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

2.2 on A New Narrative Provoking a New Model for Living

On this plane of existence, in our contemporary reality, the confrontation of this thesis in practice and discourse is one that claims to be clear and determinate, within the narratives of indeterminacy. The resulting work is one that clearly is dialectical in mediating the multiplicity of its interpretations and critiques.

“Hence the intelligence, too, tells me in its way that this world is absurd. Its contrary, blind reason, may well claim that all is clear; I was waiting for proof and longing for it to be right. But despite so many pretentious centuries and over the heads of so many eloquent and persuasive men, I know that is false. On this plane, at least, there is no happiness if I cannot know. That universal reason, practical or ethical, that determinism, those categories that explain everything are enough to make a decent man laugh. They have nothing to do with the mind. They negate its profound truth, which is to be enchained….

I said that the world is absurd, but I was too hasty. This world in itself is not reasonable, that is all that can be said.”

The design provocations that follows is one of many that could exist, and seeks to point out some provocation of its past iteration.

It is one that can be indeterminate, and offers multiplicity in its readings.

Dissecting this provocation and understanding its iteration alongside its former is crucial to understanding the domestic setting, and how it has changed over the past few decades.

In questioning and analyzing the work that follows, be critical, and engage with it at every level. Interrogate it as a domestic model, and more importantly as a counterpart to the work of Diller + Scofidio.

The narrative that will unfold is one that is inherently contradictory to the known, or at least to what is accepted so generously within discourse. Determining the rationale for this new narrative may be one that is absurd, and the result is a work that disseminates its own construct of the contemporary world in which it was created.

- Albert Camus, in The Myth of Sisyphus 13

critique (n.) - a piece of writing or other review in which a text, creative work, subject, etc., is analysed or evaluated; a critical essay or article; a work of criticism

the art or practice of analysing, evaluating, and commenting on the qualities and character of something, esp. literary texts or other creative works; critical analysis

commentary (n.) - a treatise consisting of a systematic series of comments or annotations on the text of a literary work; an expository treatise following the order of the work explained

contemporaneity (n.) - the state or fact of belonging to or existing at the same time or period

domesticity (n.) - the quality or state of being domestic, domestic character; home or family life; devotion to home; homeliness

indeterminacy (n.) - the quality of being indeterminate; want of determinateness or definiteness

indeterminate (adj.) - not fixed in extent, number, character or nature; left uncertain as to limits of extent, number, etc.; of uncertain size or character; indefinite, indistinct, uncertain

multiplicity (n.) - the quality or condition of being multiplex or manifold; manifold variety

or or 14

manifold (adj.) - varied or diverse in appearance, form, or character; having various forms, features, component parts, relations, applications, etc.; performing several functions at once; complex, difficult [obsolete] now chiefly literary

that is the specified thing in many ways or in many relations; entitled to the specified name on many grounds; also (occasionally), of persons: many-minded, variable; having many diverse capacities [obsolete]

narrative (n.) - the state or fact of belonging to or existing at the same time or period

occupant (n.) - a person who occupies, resides in, or is at the time in a place; a person occupying or holding in actual possession property (esp. land, or an office or position); an occupier

occupy (v.) - [transitive] to live in and use (a place) as its tenant or regular inhabitant; to inhabit; to stay or lodge in [intransitive] to hold possession or office; to dwell, reside; to stay, abide [obsolete]

3.0 on A New Provocation the Slow House ‘23

The ultimate provocation of this thesis takes the form of a house that envelopes in on itself. The house, which originally had no facade(s), now intersects at the point where the home originally began and ended. The design implements the same elements and organization from the original design, and redraws the home according to the new formal narrative that it embodies.

The house follows two curves still, though not geometrically conforming arcs derived from a circle, but two compound curves of different relative speeds, each with their own instantaneous rates of change that happen simultaneously along their circumnavigations. The interior curve becomes the fast wall, as it envelopes in on itself. The exterior curve becomes the slow wall as it slowly emerges outwardly to slowly accentuate and reveal the grandeur of the view out the picture window.

The front door does not pivot as it did in its previous two story height opening, and rather rotates along its central point, subdividing the interior prior to stepping foot inside the building. The entrance is confronted with he same knife-like wall as before, but this time dividing the space at an angle and connoting different perceptions of each route between the [relatively] accelerating and decelerating curves. To the left, along the fast curve, a stair descends from above. To the right, a stair ascends up the slow wall. Both anti-perspectival and not privileging any views to the exterior, the path to the left is to the lower private level (as in the previous iteration), and that to the right allows the occupant to emerge and slowly reveal the ‘picture window’ on the upper level.

The slow stair ascends up to the upper level and slowly reveals the view out the ‘picture window.’

The translation of the fast stair from the original design to that in the new provocation is not one that is apparent visually, as the one in the previous design did not circumnavigate the curved walls. Instead it was a straight descend to the fast curve at the end of circulation through the upper level. The same relationship exists where the occupant reaches the terminus of their voyage through the anti-optical apparatus to the revelation of the ‘picture window,’ and descends [relatively] fast to the lower level. The circumscribed form and the subsequent organization of the plan dictated that the exterior wall and bedrooms on the lower level face south, as opposed to their previous orientation along the northern wall. This meant that the skylights and apertures from the original design would no longer be functional or practical to the new design. So, to keep with the siting and orientation with the new form, the resulting form takes on a series of ‘fins’ that give a glimpse of the view back towards the journey from which the occupant came, and hindering any view towards what would be regarded as ‘picturesque,’ in relation to the waterfront view.

Though, the anti-perspectival partition that emerges from the knife-like wall is not the only thing that prevents the final view from emerging, and rather the front door [although not literally the pivoting door itself] intersects the ‘picture window’ and subdivides the view, while also blocking it further. The ‘final view’ is one of both exteriority and interiority; it is a scene of both the domestic and the natural. The occupant then descends to the lower private level again along the fast stair, and becomes entrapped within the confines of the domestic space.

Just as the Slow House (’91) was a “means to an end,” this version (’23) is one that confounds that relationship. In this way the new design is a “means with no end,” or a “means to an end that never ends.” Diller + Scofidio defined their home as a “space between places,” indicating the screens of the ‘picture window’ / television as the terminus of the route from the life of the everyday (car windshield). This is not as evident within a contemporary sensibility and instead there is a multiplicity of indicators and screens that all simulate different and confusing meanings. The ‘front door’ intersecting the ‘picture window’ blur the lines between the start and end, and dismantle any linear notion of the project. The view from the project is no longer ‘whole’ in a sense, and relates differently to how we view media and screens within the present.

The subdivision of the view and the overlaid images / screens attempts to touch on, in short, the ways in which media consumption and image culture has changed. The relationship between our occupations of domestic settings, and maintaining relationships with the outside world, be those images of the world beyond our own, or the relationships that we maintain with people and places. The “space between places” is one that still amplifies the disconnect between the idealized version of the world confronting our own inhabitance. The non-linear and non-singular render the space of the home as one that is confounded by a multiplicity of varied experiences and identities that all construct the metaphysical places in which we ‘belong.’ The visual indicators and images associated with the domestic space are simultaneously all encompassing, and increasingly varied.

The result is one that that offers a non-singular experience, and is centered around the narrative of longing for an escape. The bounds between the interiority and exteriority are no longer distinct, and the conception of a start or end was dissolved. The relationship of the X-ray sections / contemporary snapshots / moments of domestic rituals ( / etc.), become inversely related across the experiences for the home; each section is one of opposites, between work / leisure, the communal / individual, and the departure / arrival within the home.

With the COVID-19 pandemic and the shutdown of the world, this project speaks in an indirect way to the existentialist dilemmas and dread that was experienced by many. Without being a project about the world in a post-pandemic and health-conscious sensibility, this does represent that there has been a shift in the ways that we experience and view the home differently, all of which happened abruptly and subverted into our everyday lives within contemporaneity.

decelerating curve slow stair

slow curve

decelerating the experience to the ‘picture window’ deck

to offset the disorienting interiority

stair’

‘counter-weight

camerasurveillance+antennaprimary fast stair

space that is on the edge the domestic and the natural fast curve

cameravideo

deskoverview’‘sliced

‘void’the viewanyopresseswhichbetween‘space’the

‘sliced view’ over bed andepicting pasttheofviewincremental

eat in kitchen for two the point at which the 20th century domestic model ceases to exist

‘sliced view’ from bath providing a glimpse of an image of the natural

accelerating curve

accelerating towardsthe private realm

ambiguous boundarytheentrapsthevisitor

secondary-oreven supplemental-screen

themeanstoanendwithnoend

‘knifeedge’

‘picturewindow’

swingingfrontdoor

videocamera

chimneystack

primaryantenna+surveillancecamera

secondaryantenna+pilotis

thedistortionoffamiliardomesticelements

notquite80’countertop

galleykitchen

1989palimpsest

pointof‘slowing’theview

experientiallyprolongingtheinnevitableview-butonethatisnotclear ‘slicedview’overbed

primaryantenna+ surveillancecamera

theabsentrealmforthe21stcenturyworkingfamilyunit

denyingtheviewofthescenic-privilegingoneofthethereturntothedomestic

mobile dining table the realm of the non-singular domestic unit

Upper Plan of the Slow House ‘91

Lower Level Plan of the Slow House ‘23

Palimpsest of the Slow House Construction ‘89

Upper Level Plan of the Slow House ‘23

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?”

whip.

A middle-aged man looks at his phone screen. The number is not save. He whispers to himself, “I don’t know and I don’t care.”

Slamming down the receiver, she answers, “I don’t know and I don’t care!”

“ My husband and I have a give and take relationship.

“My husband and I have a give and take relationship.

I give and he takes.”

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. Between themselves and the occasional third, they think it’s all fair game.

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?

His lover is a man.

What speaks but never says a word?

What depicts the real world but never shows it? Social media.

The psychiatrist responds, “I would stop eating in bed.”

A mirror.

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?

A window.

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?

What swallows your dreams by day and drains you of any at night? Your job.

The front door.

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.

on Critique, Pratcice, and Representation a Means to an End

The final critiques of this project are still ongoing, and the project itself is still ongoing. The representational aspirations of the project are the same as those posed by Diller + Scofidio in 1991, but in a contemporary sensibility.

While there are perspectives that will call into question whether or not this project is a critique of the original, or a commentary on it - this thesis believes that it can be both, and.

This thesis is in dialog with its predecessor and it seeks to render a number of relevant issues within discourse visisble; surrounding our ability to provoke radical ideas through representation, our contemporary issues that are surrounding domesticity, and our ability to be in converation with practice and discourse that mediates the past and present.

Mies van der Rohe, in a deposition from Edith Farnsworth and Randolf Bohrer, described his design as such:

“I would not say it was not an experimental house. It is very difficult — to state the definition for this house. It was a new house. It was a house not built in the usual way and it was a house with new problems.” 15

In this thesis, and comparing it to the work of Diller + Scofidio, I place myself in the role of both Bohrer and Mies. This thesis tasks itself with answering whether or not the the house is a radical one, rather than an experimental one. This thesis requires conversation, and often opposition, between the outside viewer and the designer, simultaneously. I come to the same standstill that Mies finds himself in, having to justify the experimentation with the house, and more specifically a model of a house that is already accepted within discourse. The final provocation is not built in its usual way, and as a result it too is “a house with new problems.”

Andrew Atwood poses a set of questions in his book Not Interesting:

“What about the stuff we don’t know if we want to argue for or against? To acknowledge those kinds of feelings and those kinds of things is to acknowledge the power of interest, the limitations of criticism, and the shortcomings of over fifty years of architectural discourse.” 16

This thesis, similar to how Atwood does not seek to answer the questions he identifies, is one that is critically engaging with discourse and practice. The work can acknowledge its own limitations, as well as contribute to the discussions centered around contemporary criticism and discourse. The reader / critic is left to understand what our agency is, and question our practice in ways that are intrinsically tied to a lineage of discourse and practice, which is itself attempting to remediate its own agency in the contemporary.

If you ask “what does this thesis seek to accomplish?” or “what is the means to the end?” or “what is the end?” then you are apart of this discussion. It is one that is contemporary, without end, and multiplural in its understanding. This thesis seeks to implement itself into contemporary discourse, without remedying the issues of today.

Colomina, Beatriz. “Domesticity at War.” Assemblage, no. 16 (1991): 15–41. https://doi.org/10.2307/3171160.

Office for Metropolitian Architecture. “LA CASA PALESTRA / TOWN HALL AND LIBRARY, THE HAGUE.” AA Files, no. 13 (1986): 8. http:// www.jstor.org/stable/29543536.

Office for Metropolitian Architecture. “LA CASA PALESTRA / TOWN HALL AND LIBRARY, THE HAGUE.”

Ricchi, Daria. “Jet Lag.: Exodus from the Journey and from the Domestic in the Work of Diller + Scofidio.” In Esili e Esodi | Exiles and Exoduses: «Vesper» No. 4 Primavera-Estate | Spring-Summer 2021, edited by Sara Marini, 114–25. Quodlibet, 2021. https://doi. org/10.2307/j.ctv2z0vtq6.12.

Wood, Peter. 2005. Performance: ‘A woman asks her psychiatrist, “My husband only seems to want to use the dining room table for sex. What should I do?” The psychiatrist responds, “I would stop eating in bed.”’ TRACEY: Drawing and Visualization Research.

Wood, Performance: ‘A woman asks her psychiatrist, “My husband only seems to want to use the dining room table for sex. What should I do?” The psychiatrist responds, “I would stop eating in bed.”’

SMITH, TERRY. “Concurrence: Art, Design, Architecture.” In Art to Come: Histories of Contemporary Art, 101–25. Duke University Press, 2019. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11smk7c.9.

Bremner, Alex. “Re-Activating the Docile Body: A Critical (Re)View of Diller and Scofidio’sSlow House,” Architectural Theory Review 5, no. 1 (2000): pp. 104-122, https://doi.org/10.1080/13264820009478391.

Diller, Elizabeth, Ricardo Merrill Scofidio, and Georges Teyssot. FLESH: Archtiectural Probes. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1994.

Diller, Elizabeth, and ANTHONY VIDLER. “Architecture Is a Technology That Has Not yet Discovered Its Agency.” Log, no. 28 (2013): 21–26. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43630864.

Diller, et al. FLESH: Architectural Probes.

Bremner, “Re-Activating the Docile Body: A Critical (Re)View of Diller and Scofidio’sSlow House.”

Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus. New York: Vintage International, 2018.

OED Online.March 2023.Oxford University Press.https://www-oed-com.libezproxy2.syr.edu/view/Entry/48886?redirectedFrom=definitions (accessed March, 2023).

Beam, Alex. Broken glass: Mies van der Rohe, Edith Farnsworth, and the fight over a modernist masterpiece. New York: Random House, 2020.

Atwood, Andrew. Not interesting: On the limits of criticism in architecture. Applied Research and Design Publishing,an imprint of ORO Editions, 2018.

Second Level Plan of the Miller House, by Jose Oubrerie. Lexington, KY, 1988-92.

Worms-eye Axonometric of Maison à Bordeaux, by OMA. Bordeaux, FR, 1994-98.

Unrolled Interior Elevation of the Möbius House, by UNStudio, Het Gooi, NL, 1993-98.

Drawing Apparatus for the Slow House, by Diller + Scofidio, unbuilt. 1991.

Perspective for La Casa Palestra, by OMA, 1986.

Plan for La Casa Palestra, by OMA, 1986.

Photo Collage of the Farnsworth House in a Pennsylvania Suburb, by RJ Harman, 2022.

Cover of the 1991 PA Awards, showing the serial sections of the Slow House, 1991.

Page 89 of the 1991 PA Awards, Showing the Jury Comments of the Slow House, 1991.

Studio Portraits of Diller + Scofidio for the 1991 PA Awards Issue, edited and pixelized. 1991/2023.

Site Collage of the undeveloped site in North Haven, Long Island, overlaid on a satellite image, RJ Harman, 2023.