Studio Design: Wild & Domestic
House of Pause
In an age when we are finally recognizing the extent of our deep relationships with the environment around us and the microbiome within us, this studio project focused on developing a form of solidarity with the nonhuman. As the stay-at-home isolation has reacquainted us with the importance and complexity of domestic space, the studio focused on researching how domestic architecture can serve as the medium to reevaluate the politics, cultures, and ecologies of living not only with each other, but near and with other species. Exploring a variety of alternative building technologies, this project develops dwellings that accommodate both humans and non-humans, with design-altering parameters that consider many different factors. We thought of animals as autonomous neighbors, not as pets, pests, or domesticated beings.
For my nonhuman being, I chose the green anole. My project started by creating a single wall that is shared by both the human and the green anole through the use of 3D printed concrete. This wall later developed to engulf a dwelling, with courtyards interrupting both the interior space, as well as the exterior boundaries. The wall also developed throughout the project, becoming its own ecosystem on the outside, while creating furniture for humans on the inside of the dwelling.
The wall’s key role in the interaction between the human and the green anole allowed the dwelling to become modular. Through Grasshopper in Rhino 6, I was able to create a script, using the programming language Python, that generates endless possibilities of dwellings based on existing trees, size, and many user-input preferences.
