Contextual Appropriation
Competition entry | Shortlisted | Fall 2019
*First Paradox
Nature is not our construction; it is transcendent and surpasses us infinitely.
Society is our free construction; it is immanent to our action.
Second Paradox
Nature is our artificial construction in the laboratory; it is immanent.
Society is not our construction; it is transcendent and surpasses us infinitely.
Constitution
Nature is our artificial construction in the laboratory; it is immanent.
Society is not our construction; it is transcendent and surpasses us infinitely.
Society is not our construction; it is transcendent and surpasses us infinitely.
Today, nomadic tendencies are returning, we are being sucked deeper into the confines of our technology, and we are looking for what it is like to reconcile with nature. The tiny home culture is one that has begun to blend itself with all of these traits into one largely connected yet distant state of mind. That is both true to itself yet hides its fiction behind its technological veil
This specific tiny home is less about a problem of optimization in an age of complete technological control, but is focused on walking the line between nature and society. In simple terms, the societal shift towards the natural. Meaning, as Latour puts it above, we are attempting to mix these distinct halves though we know it will not happen. The condition of us faking our natural connection as well as our social one, has begun to influence our world and our cultures. The use of social media to show our immersion into nature or society but only to impress those who are distant and incapable of deciphering the truth versus the fiction.
By incorporating, directly, the site into a concrete/mud-brick facade, I have attempted to wrap up our technological and exuberant objects in a simplified, somewhat familiar, “contextual” envelope. The house cannot travel, but can be customized to its location and can change with the seasons. The interior houses all programmatic needs as well as a hybrid wood/electric/gas hearth, water collection and purification, and photovaultaics. Because first impressions are everything.
*Bruno Latour’s paradoxes of Nature and Society - We Have Never Been Modern, Bruno Latour
Chunk | heating system
Chunk | structural system
Chunk | plumbing system
Chunk | electrical system
Basement plan | -3.00m
Ground floor plan | 0.00m
First floor plan | +3.00m
Roof plan | +6.00m
West elevation
North elevation
South elevation
West elevation
North- South section
East-West section
West-East section
South-North section