“The House Where Man’s Irreducible Solitude Dwells”
“The Primeval house” is a dwelling that combines the performance of the daily rituals and the act of building. Deriving from a critical position towards the obsession with permanance within architecture, a flexible foundation becomes the stage for a fragile and temporary construction. Focussing on a certain tention between permanance and temporality, the dwelling becomes a fragile and transformative structure, something that is moving between reality and fiction. The shape-shifting structure is the result of a choreography between permanent and temporary elements, testing the boundries of how architectural elements can interact and exist together. The construction confronts the dweller with the sensitivity of time, and thereby with his own passing of time.
This story sparked a great interest around the themes of archeology and the ambiguity of the excavation-site. Along with that came the concepts of the ruin, time, decay and entropy, the tention between the real and the imagined, the power of imagination and memory, collision of different time-scales,...related to architecture. While doing this research and thinking of a possible way of turning this into a design method or attitude, the concept of FUTURE ARCHAEOLOGY was born, which is deliberately an ambiguous term; it could either refer to a yet-undiscovered method for interpreting the material residue of the past, or to a literal geological excavation of the future.
To me the attitude of FUTURE ARCHAEOLOGY, is about obtaining, as a designer, a kind of sensibility and sensitivity for the passing of time, but also the concepts of ruin and loss, the process of entropy and decay, the piecing together of traces from the past and to project them into the future.The reason why I think this is so important is because, especially as an architect, any architectural manifestation is inevitably confronted with time and destruction or transformation, from the very moment that it is situated in reality. This makes most creation temporary, even if it desires to be in a state of permanence. Architecture is always subjected to time, so a building or a city becomes a system which is in constant transformation. I think it’s important as a designer to understand the reality of architecture through the destructive process of time, which is rarely considered or used as a constructive quality, in a constructive way, to project in the future, to create flexible constructions with a true kind of sustainability.
The aim for this research was to investigate different ways of working or experimenting with the tention between permanence and temporality, different time-scales, related to architecture and construction. To create shape-shifting structures, sculpting a kind of imaginary architecture, maby not an actual space but more mental idea, a construction that is moving between reality and fiction, like a choreography through space and time. I focus on the tention between permanent elements and temporary elements, and how they can interact and exist together.
I started by defining the permanent and temporary elements. After looking at a lot of archeological references and sources, it was obvious to me that the ruins or remains of an excavated, always suggest a kind of foundation or primal structure/outline of it’s past structure. The idea of a flexible foundation emerged, which would be the permanent element, the manifestation that would be left untouched by time: or least touched by time if the construction becomes a future ruin or excavation. This foundation had to be simple and flexible for future usage and any possible transformation. Something solid or massive that still exists after a huge period of time and decay or disaster or transformation of the landscape, so that it can become the foundation of a future construction.
I experimented with flexible concrete columns and wall elements that have nocks in them, somehow suggesting or creating the possibility to attach a structure, or it can be seen as a trace of a past structure. There are different types; a corner-piece, an element to put in-between, or more like a shackle piece, and a stair module. These are the elements that would create the permanent part of the dwelling or the foundation. For the temporary structures I worked with the wedge. A giant and static column, made out of concrete, held in place by wedges. A powerful image. This creates a kind of temporarity/flexibility but also a certain fragility and tention that I think is very fascinating, and a quality that I’m really looking for in this project. Playing with the idea of counter-weight and movement, balance and imbalance as well. The temporary elements can only exist or become meaningful through the permanent elements. They are co-existing and interacting, which creates in interesting dynamic. I need to lift the fragility of the wedge, because the wedge has little to nu use on a flat surface, or it’s not used to it’s full potential this way.
In the next phase, I decided to work with the condition of the slope in order to create the construction, which somehow also emphasises the temporality of it, making it more fragile, suggesting a movement falling down or being unstable. The small element of the wedge becomes a powerful or meaningful element. Time to experiment with models, but more intuitively and responsive to the condition of the slope, which created these somewhat wierd or peculiar constructions that balance each other out.
I create a dwelling located on a slope. I decided to use the title: the primeval house: The house where man’s irreducible solitude dwells. It is a construction for an individual, trying to work around the idea of the daily rituals and the act of constructing, confronting the dweller with the sensitivity of time and transformation, and thereby with his own passing of time. I started with creating a foundation that is one piece, the permanent element, which I called “The flexible stage, containing artefacts to perform the always renewed daily rituals.” I wanted to include some key elements, like a space to sleep/hide get protection, a fire or hearth which becomes the heart of the dwelling, and a source, a flow of water. For this source of water, I use a reservoir at the bottom of the plate which collects all the water that is running down the plane, guided by small gutters, towards one central point. This creates a dynamic between the passing of time and the way water is being collected in the reservoir. Like an hourglass; slowly collecting over time, and eventually overflowing, where the water then continues its journey elsewhere. With this gesture, the inhabitant is confronted with the notion of time passing by and as it becomes a measurement tool. The other element is the central hearth, a source for warmth and food, becoming the central piece of the dwelling. This can also be used as a structural element to build around or build upon; carry a roof.
The in-between becomes a space where the temporary elements start to ‘perform’. Their existence, and therefore utility, highly depends on these permanent elements, almost like a symbiotic relation. Combined, they create a temporary dwelling. It becomes a place where different time-scales come together; rocks being held up by this fragility thread, giving weight to the structure, a single wedge keeps the whole structure standing...The condition of the slope becomes the catalist to keep all that is built in an illusion of balance. The result combines the act of the daily rituals and the act of building in this very primal dwelling.
