MISE EN SCENES

A House, a stair, a stage, projecting the street in while projecting out multiple performances to the public.

Video access: https://vimeo. com/799382979

ARCH2101 | Fall 2021

Instructor: Andrea Simitch model featuring the protruding chambers and the continuous stair. concept sketch/model: The concept of the scheme is a continuous stair capped by an envelope, while sometimes the stairs extrude, backs off, and touches the envelope.

The project “Mise-en-scenes” is a house designed for two couples on Cascadelia avenue in Ithaca. NY. The concept of the scheme is a continuous stair capped by a translucent polycarbonate envelope, where the stair turns into a shelf, a seat, a kitchen counter, a bed, a bar, and a chamber room.

While the structure of the stair spirals up as a continuation of the street, a series of chamber rooms protrudes out, acting as stages that visually connect to the public space. Acting as a stage, the protruding chambers are being seen from the exterior, yet they could also act as spectator seats seeing the outside: the performance of sunrise, the dance of the falling leaves, or the ensemble of the canal...Thus the house is a performance, sometimes private, sometimes public, or a mixture in between.

Mise en scenes, 1':06'', Single channel

Video access: https://vimeo. com/799382979

A one minute film featuring the everchanging chambers in the house. As the scenery on the street projects in, the performances inside the house project out to the street.

Notes on archive:

"The activity of archiving is an engagement, an interruption in a settled field, which is to enter critically into existing configurations to re-open the closed structures into which they have ossified." -- Stuart Hall, Constituting

Archive