Every Day Architecture

“For an individual, for a group, to inhabit is to appropriate something. Not in the sense of possessing it, but making it an oeuvre, making it one’s own, marking it, modeling it, shaping it.” – Lefebvre, Henri

    Designing for everyday life is less about prescribing with architecture a certain way to live, but about a freedom for occupants to manifest a lifestyle. I found it interesting that the projects discussed this week in lecture conveyed a certain admission from the occupants about lifestyle when they inhabited those buildings. An admission that to live in these projects it will be evident how I live, and it will exhibit a lifestyle true to myself.

    Lacaton & Vassal’s work frequents cheap materials and construction methods, as well as recyclability, infill, and adaptive reuse. As a result, the form and spatial development of their architecture becomes secondary to the artifacts and lifestyle imposed on it by the occupants. The Latapie house is transparent enough to exhibit the use of the ‘greenhouse’ as a dining space, lounge area, garden space, or general storage. The façade is responsive to the needs of the occupant, allowing light, breezes, and views whenever the occupants need.

         

    Frank Harmon’s work in general is very special. The St. Helena project (Seven Sisters) is an example of a lifestyle in the low country and the admission of the client that they want to live their vacation life all year round – in the salt marsh and outside. The design strategy was inspired by how people have lived, and lived cheaply, in the salt marshes and mixed that precedent with how the client vacations there. The result is an open air screened in building resembling a fishing shack in the marsh whose form is in conversation with the air stream trailer and outhouse the client uses to vacation. Together the project is exhibiting the client’s lifestyle and admission of how they have always wanted to live.

    I found Sanaa’s work to be the most intrusive into the reasoning behind people’s lifestyles. The Moriyama house feels like an exhibit on lifestyle where the white palette will highlight stain, wear, and be a soft backdrop for everyday props. It seems from the floor plans of their work that there is a certain amount of regimentation with key rooms, and formal designations for functions, but the in between space is an invitation to exhibit a fluid lifestyle and movement of the occupants. I feel as though their design strategies force occupants the most to question how they live, want to live, and understand their lifestyle without being too suggestive on how to respond to the spatial configurations.

                From these three projects I gather, amongst other things, that perhaps designing architecture for everyday life should become supportive (Lacaton & Vassal) of lifestyle, reflective (Frank Harmon) upon lifestyle, and inquisitive (Sanaa) upon lifestyle of the occupants. The relationship between occupant and building therefore will exhibit the admission of the occupant that ‘I live in this way, every day.’