The Production of Dwelling.
Studio 12 is in the midst of a live research project on housing. Last year we focused on the reinvention of suburban housing with an emphasis on developing clear identities for exterior territories. This year we turn our attention to the interior and the development of the living unit
The building type that combines dwelling and workplace has existed in a multitude of different forms for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. (Francis Hollis)
Specifically we are interested in challenging assumptions about what a home is, particularly in relation to work or other productive activities. ‘Living room’, ‘bedroom’, ‘kitchen’ and ‘bathroom’ are labels which often stop us from asking questions about the kind of spaces we need to make our homes work for us. As architecture students many of you will work from home at least some of the time. Francis Hollis notes that the number of people working from home has doubled between 1991 and 2010 and estimates that 25% of all employed people work at home for at least 8 hours a week. Yet contemporary housing design reflects very little of these changes in our domestic environment. We will look carefully at domestic and work related routines as a way of generating architectural space and form. We are not interested in the typology of live-work per se, but in architecture that responds to the real, tactile, and everyday aspects of day-to-day living. We will be asking students to closely examine domestic and work routines as a way of generating architectural spaces and forms. Studio 12 encourages a non-linear approach to design, working at various scales simultaneously and in a variety of media.
In contrast to last year’s suburban site, we will be working in Hastings in order to develop urban prototypes of live-work relationships. The final site(s) will be selected from a series of plots currently planned for development by Hastings Council and potentially in relation to the Hastings Community Land Trust. The character and type of live-work relationship will be up to each student; this can range from flexible rooms, un-programmed spaces, garden sheds, communal workshops, productive roof spaces, expandable architecture, to traditional storefronts.
Studio 12 is taught by Luis Diaz and Sean Albuquerque.