Living as a Temporary Condition
Our discussion on Thursday pertained to Architecture built
by the user, and in this particular discussion, slums and the impoverished. Since, I am not personally familiar with the
dynamic of the socio-economic properties of these slums I found the discussion
to be educational and thoughtful. Now
however, I want to look at this argument a different way, taking out the economic
status of it all and factoring in another element: time. Regardless of how you identify economically,
the way we interact/influence with our daily in temporary spaces is bizarre. In
the last 8 years I’ve had 10 “homes”. It
has made me realize how we influence our habitat on a temporary level. The example of the half-built homes in Chile
were a beautiful solution to social housing by allowing users to build and expand
their homes (when they were financially able). People are encouraged to alter
their environments here where as I have been too scared to even change the
paint color of any of the last places I have lived, knowing I will have to just
repaint it when I leave. I have rarely
fostered a sense of community in any of the places I have lived in the last 8
years, aside from perhaps my dorm room.
My
point being, our ephemeral living conditions are often cast aside in terms of its importance
or our level of influence over it. I have lived in
dorms, townhouses, apartments and homes. The most influence I have had over
these spaces is the furniture. Then of course there is the oddity of knowing that dozens of people have lived in your same home before you, it takes away any sense of personalization and connection to the space. These temporary homes were chosen solely for their convenience,
location, and price. We take what we can
for the time being and when the time is up, we cast it away and its forgotten. How can we change the way we interact with our temporary living spaces for a richer living experience?
I think you've posed an interesting question regarding your last sentence with how we interact with temporary living spaces and I would be interested in other opinions. College dorms are typically made of more durable and low maintenance materials such as CMU block walls and/or impact resistant gypsumboard, while apartments and townhomes I think are more made of wood/metal stick framing. Some apartments would let you paint the walls during your lease - as long as you paint them back to the existing color before you move out while other forms are temporary housing are more fixed. Outside of wall posters or hanging banners in a dorm room, it can feel very difficult to make the space feel like a home or strong dwelling environment. Do you think there are other ways to personalize temporary living spaces other than paint, posters, banners, and bringing your own furniture?
ReplyDeleteThis was a really thought-provoking post. I think one of the solutions of making a temporary dwelling a "home" lies in an attitude along the lines of Thu's blog post. Her church used an empty single room for a variety of events, but it was the human connection within it that truly mattered, in my opinion. I lived in an apartment for 3 years with my two best friends and, although we never painted the walls and I never put any pictures up, the memories and connections that we were able to create within that architectural space are what made it a home. Of course we added a few personal things here and there, but at the end of the day the space was made personal to us simply by occupying it with each other.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a really interesting take on transience of our experience with architecture. Jimmy made an good point about this temporary architecture providing the framework for experience and interaction to occur. Those memories and connection we make with people or community are more significant than the richness of the architecture. I think this ties into the mentality of informal communities and it is important to realize that architecture is not just about the building, but rather, the emotional experience.
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