CO-LIVING RESEARCH

09-12.2022

Research project diving into the privacy, comfort and human relations, which analyses how cities affect, or impose the architecture of the room on residents, and what are the ways to reshape the dynamics from the bottom-up movement.

Project realized with special focus on area of Charlois in south Rotterdam, NL, and future plans for its’ redevelopment.

Overview:

/.1 KEN ISAACS
/.2 ABSALON
/.3 DOGMA
/.4 HANNES MEYER
/.5 MAGNITOGORSK
/.6 MINIMUM DWELLING
/.7 BOARDING HOUSES
/.8 PERMANENT TEMPORARINESS

/ OTHER REFERENCE PROJECTS

1927-2016

An experimental designer, most active publicly between the ’50s and ’70s in he USA. Most of his portfolio consists of hand-built installations, ranging from immersive environments transmitting audio-visual narratives, „The Knowledge Box”(1962), to the highly functional handbook „How to Build Your Own LiVing Structures”(1974), presenting his projects in form of a building manual.

The book „How to Build Your Own Living Structures” shares a step-by-step guide to building sustainable, multi-functional shelters, being neither furniture
nor architecture, fulfilling the roles of both. Isaacs describes the whole process, leading the reader through the choice and obtaining of materials, tools, and hardware, then adjusting the workplace, measuring, techniques of constructing, and assembly of parts.

Ken Isaacs defends the concept, that the human living environment has to be tailored to the needs. The one-suits-all situation is not functional given the circumstances of today’s civilization. Factory-made products are a generalization of clients’ wishes, however, those personalized ones are unaffordable for most.

„Waste of resources, human&physical” is the effect of lack of nurture towards human beings. Awareness of space and end users’ needs combined constitutes creating a comfortable home and does not require an outside party architect.

The most relevant point in my project is the aspect of sharing knowledge and enabling action. In the context of the housing crisis, when people have to settle on conditions despite their standards, I believe this (at least) builds up hope for existing alternatives to template room.

MATRIX IDEA

The concept of using modular elements can be composed according to the will of the end user. All the parts can be reused, forming a new concept. The units serve particular functions necessary to provide shelter, though the form varies depending on the scale and environment. Some modules are built indoors as a bedroom, storage, workplace, or all together, while others act as outdoor shelters, with appropriate protection from the ground and weather by an additional „skin” layer, still requiring the same building materials. Matrix is very flexible, it can almost organically (although modular) adjust to the lifestyle needs, and contrary to a standard house, can follow its’ creator throughout life changes, expanding, diverging, reshaping, and moving.

1964-1993

Meir Eshel was an Israeli-French sculptor, who created a series of personalized living units, „Cells”, ranging from 4 to 9m2. Those white, geometric, architectural prototypes were based entirely on his body measurements and the movements he wanted to perform inside. Inspired by movements from the modernist of Le Corbusier, the mass production, to Russian constructivism. Only one of the living pods has been completed to be fully functional.

The series of „Cells” was intended for Absalon himself, to be inhabited in different cities around the world he planned to travel between. Its’ size and form are tailored to him, so any occasional visitor would not feel the full appropriateness of it. The calculations for exterior, interior, and furniture were made through the study of ritual activities Absalon would take on inside. His requirements covered eating, sleeping, showering, and such.

The aim of the design was not comfort, but rather safety and isolation. The limited cells imposed strict regulations on inhabitants’ life inside, contrary to those existing outside, current social norms. This included limiting his possessions to a bare minimum, as well as living alone permanently.

„Rather than being centered on what has become a fetish of consumerist culture - desire - these units were founded on the concept of restraint. And yet, Absalon understood restraint not as a punitive level of discipline but rather as a way of life.” -Dogma

The pods were supposed to support Absalon’s embrace of the nomadic lifestyle, protecting him from the highly oppressive society. This way, he has connected the physical tailoring with the mental requirements for the living unit.

PARANOIA OF SECURITY AND ISOLATION

The Cells were designed with intention of putting them outdoors, not on a fenced lawn, but rather in a completely public space. This highlights the contrast between the artist’s desire for protection and the environment he had to find himself in constantly. The private sphere of life
inside the units, therefore, demanded to be a „space of resistance”, rejecting exposure in a call for constant control. The dimensions inside were challenging as well, revealing a need for tension in the artistic process of Absalon.

The book „The Room of One’s Own. The Architecture of the (Private) Room” published by Dogma in 2018 offers a closer look into the process of the rooms we inhabit now throughout the history of domestic architecture, beginning around 12,000 BCE. With the first sedentary cultures, came the thought of home for survival, reproduction, organization, politics, social codes, religion, separation, status, economics, and collectivity, arriving at the housing crisis.

Domestic architecture has undergone many symbolic transformations related to culture, system, politics, and religion.

Early on, the residential settlements were semicircular shelters, providing space for hearths and giving structure to civilizations, reflecting a sense of direction shared by the entire community. The first fundamental change was the transition from a circular to a rectangular plan. The „warebox” shape function is to both contain and organize its’ contents in an orderly manner. From this emerged the room, sub-house. Subdivision and the rise of the room as a sub-house were a consequence not only of the social stresses of large-scale sedentary communities but also of the gendering and the hierarchization of domestic space.

The architecture of a room has been shaped by the wealthy, and outdated models are not supporting contemporary civilization. There have been new approaches to creating a functional space, such as Magnitorsk cell city, lodging houses, model family houses, and minimum dwellings.

It is in this context that the privacy so celebrated -first as a luxury, then as a condition for all classes- became the ideological force that induced dwellers to consider their domestic households as refugees detached from the working conditions of the outside world.

We can live with others only if we have access to the possibility of being alone, and conversely, the state of being alone does not preclude the state of being together.

Politicon zoon (animal sociale) is a term introduced by Aristotle, the definition of man as a being by nature capable of participating in the social and political life of the state. Civilizations are a mixture of public and private life, interlocked together in a way that one cannot exist without another.

However, the human animal lacks the specialized instincts which allow other species to know a priori what to do in specific situations, therefore is subject to a sensory overload that often compromises self-preservation. A subdivision of a bigger private unit meant for family allows each individual to withdraw, for solitary pleasures. The concept of privacy had led to a sharp division of the house from the public, setting thick boundaries between the individual and the environment.

Beyond the state of being alone, privacy also became a spatial expression of private ownership, leading to alienation. The isolated single-family house is becoming a lonely, wasteful and oppressive structure.

Megaron-the basic form of ancient buildings serving a cultural function.

Oikos- house not only in the sense of its’ physical structure, but also in terms of the household or family, and its property. Maientance of privacy emerging as the main purpose ofthe household, therefore emergance of the courtyard.

Cubicula-part of Roman domus, the ancestor of the „personal room”, where the archhitecture of a space approximated the scale of the human body. A temple of private life where the social codes were relaxed, a release from public scrutiny. To live a life where it’s possible to withdraw from society and cultivate oneself.

Monk’s celle/cella-individuation in stake of experimentum vitae, monasticism developed as a way to live alone but together with others. Hermits were both isolated and in contact with one another, in a model community for an ideal coexistence.

Studiolo-symbol of self-reflection and study, a reassurance of the owners’ status in the society.

Apartment-space that allowed for clear distribution of rooms within the household in order to reinforce the comfort and sense of ownership.

Stanza-room intended for staying in the place

Camera-chamber reffered to as a place to go through.

Boudoir-a part of upper -class woman’s private suite of rooms, an intimate room for informal gatherings, alternative to gender separated studiolo.

1889-1954

Swiss architect and urbanist, a second director of Bauhaus Dessau, supportive of socialist and communist philosophy. He followed his radical functionalist philosophy Die neue Baulehre. He stated that architecture is firstly an organizational matter, not aesthtetic. In 1928 Meyer published his thesis, manifesto „Building”, where he concluded: „building is nothing but organization: social, technical, economical, psychological organization.”

Hannes Meyer approached the discipline of architecture quite holistically, by thoroughly examining the end users. Daily routines of future occupants and the relationship of the house with the world outside were a factor in the functional diagram, next to the economic programme, which determined the principles of any building project.

The factors he focused on were:
1. sex life
2. sleeping habits
3. pets
4. gardening
5. personal hygiene
6. weather protection
7. hygiene in the home
8. car maintenance
9. cooking
10. heating
11. exposure to the sun
12. service

„The new housing project as a whole is to be the ultimate aim of public welfare and as such is an intentionally organized, public-spirited project in
which collective and individual energies are merged in a public-spiritedness based on an integral, co-operative foundation.” - Meyer

His goal was to create a direct relationship between architectural projects to human existence, calling for a life-oriented design.

CO-OP INTERIEUR

Reconsideration of domestic life and the advantages of co-operation against middle-class individualism. Through this extremely radical design of a personal room, Meyer brings up a question of what’s necessary. Several foldaway objects - a bed, two chairs for the occasional visitor, a table with a gramophone, and a shelving unit, are the indispensable minimum for personal use, while the rest is shared with other dwellers. The gramophone is a symbol of life that is not reduced to biological functions, but consists also of solitary pleasures of contemplation, and enjoyment of the „superfluous”.

A new lifestyle that many metropolitan dwellers were faced with as a result of reified industrial conditions was both oppressive and liberating.
Dynamic cities welcoming short-term residents in the boarding houses forced people to live in precarious conditions, at the same time freeing them from the ‚american dream’ duty, opening possibilities for new forms of communal solidarity. Meyer saw Co-op Interieur not as a home, but rather as radically generic cell liberating the individual from the burden of society’s enduring obligation to the regime of private ownership. It demonstrates not a ‚architecture of property’, but an ‚architecture of use’

1930

Plan for an industrial town proposed by Russian constructivists Okhitovich, Ginzburg, Zelenko, and Pasternak. In the context of the rapidly advancing early Soviet Union, they expressed the Disurbanism theory by rejecting the conventional centralized city, a capitalist social formation.

RIBBON CITY

Instead of large collectivist dwellings, they sought the development of individual personality under socialism. They sought to eliminate urban agglomeration in central cities and create new, self-sufficient settlements containing fewer than 50, 20, or even three residents, scattered across the
territory in close proximity to public transport hubs.

In the plan, each house consisted of only one room, supported on pilotis and equipped with a bathroom, space for storage, and a balcony. The single units were not meant to be completely autonomous. To support these minimal structures, there was a system of collective services evenly distributed within the territory.

Their modular “pods” (individual housing units) were freely associable or dismantled according to the individual personality and the evolution of his familiar bounds. The physical “link” between one or more pods is equaled to an affective link between couples of people. A birth could be accommodated with more pods, while separations didn’t have the disadvantages of space and property since a divorced couple could simply go their separate ways by uncoupling pod houses.

Pasternak referred to a fixed house as an ‘anachronism, apathetic and out of place, no longer an active participant in an active and fast-moving life’.

1932

The concept for living units introduced by Karel Tiege in the context of the post-war world, where the labour class transferred to the cities was faced with a dramatic lack of housing and bad sanitary conditions. Stating that ‚the only aim and scope of modern architecture is the scientific solution of exact tasks of rational construction’, Tiege followed functionalist architecture offering modernized, cheap, and compact housing.

Minimum dwelling presents as a new hope: low-cost and high-quality. The important factor is the rationalization of the plan and the industrialization of the construction elements with prefabricated and standardized elements such as concrete walls. The industry can mass-produce the building components and thus reduce their cost.

Enforcing the cultural concept of nuclear family and it’s gendered functions, schedules and spaces, the minimum dwelling represents the reduced area for maximum functionality. In the broader context, the appartments would be maintained by collective effort, complemented by the collectivisation of domestic services and labour, such as cooking, housekeeping, bathing, dining. For Teige, organising living in the form of minimum dwelling had the potential to overcome both the ideology of bourgeois living,and the rising modern plea for a ‘subsistence minimum’.

HEALTH
Faced with unemployment and housing crisis, people accumulated in overcrowded areas. Multiple families inhabiting a house with few windows and cluster of victorian style decor was a prime breeding ground for any pandemics, especially with the crippling healthcare support.

NOT A MICRO FLAT

Any issues concerning this social situation would not be resolved by simply reduced version of a small bourgeois apartment. It is possible only synthetically in all its aspect and within the context of its economic, hygienic, ideological and socio-political ramifications.

The transition spaces for people to get used to big city life, without getting struck by the downsides of it for the starters. One, the Jeanne D’Arc Residence in Chelsea, run by an order of nuns, offered a home for “friendless French girls” who immigrated for work as seamstresses or caregivers. The temporary accommodations offered a chance to get to know the unfamiliar in a more approachable way, by learning the customs of their new community, setting up a new social network, and gaining independence with help of others in a similar situation.

These agencies were officially philanthropic enterprises but were aimed at controlling the working class by imposing specific morality upon them. With the pretext of improving workers’ living conditions, philanthropists wanted to introduce the working class to middle-class values and ideas of respectability in metropolises.

The Society for Improving the Conditions of the Labouring Classes formulated new typologies for affordable, collective urban dwellings. Henry Roberts developed multiple model plans for boarding houses for SICLC. The architecture of a single room in communitarian buildings followed the policies of the minimum acceptable dimensions of a floor plan and ceiling height, light and ventilation, heating, and construction materials. Lodging houses offered common washing facilities, living rooms, kitchens, and baths.

In boarding houses like those designed by Henry Roberts, the emergence of built-in furniture was mostly due to economic and practical factors (as dwellers were mostly temporary and relocating from distant places). In communitarian utopian models, such as The American Woman’s Home by Catherine Beecher, the redistribution of facilities and household appliances contributed to the goal of fostering women’s emancipation and generally reducing the shared burden of domestic chores.

Architectural collective DAAR run by architects Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti explored the contemporary forms of life in refugee camps. At the intersection of architecture, internationalism, and institutions they decolonized the meaning of heritage, in a call for re-thinking what is to be considered architecture. People who live in a stateless condition and are moved against their will are often attached to the place of their exile, to the camp.

The notion of heritage in refugee camps forces architecture to operate in more than one site simultaneously: the space of exile and the space of origin. Although refugee camps are initiated by using military grids, with time, people transformed the grids in order to mirror their places of origin. For example, walking today in a refugee camp in Palestine is like walking between the villages from which refugees were expelled since the camp is divided into neighborhoods defined by the villages of origin.

The stories told through refugee camps start with the relocation to a temporary shelter. Then, with time, the hopes for a return go down, thus, people begin to incorporate their culture into their new life. From shelter to new everyday reality, the temporary turn into permanent, though not consensually.

CULTURE CAMPSITE ROTTERDAM NL

Alexander Brodsky
YOUR PRISON

W1555

Renovation

In consultation with Woonstad, architectural firm Superuse Studios and firm Van der Ree & Vermeulen, a renovation plan was developed that was approved by the residents/members of Association 1555. The plan entails the realization of 46 social rental homes and communal and social spaces. After the renovation, we will take over the management of the complex.The association rents the complex in its entirety from Woonstad and rents
the houses to the members. The association also assumes responsibility for the operation of the community and social facility. 

Yona Friedman
VILLE SPATIALE

Louise Bourgeois 
CELL (THE LAST CLIMB)