Out of the Box: Reclaiming Home Ownership
The commodification of housing has led to a state wherein the house is as much future equity and resale value as it is a home for the present life of the homeowner. Suburbia is filled with streets of marginally varied homes built off a single template. How does the homeowner claim and identify with this space?
As the government pumps money into home ownership subsidies, tax breaks, and mortgages, renting and multi-use spaces are de-incentivized. According to a report by nonprofit Smart Growth America, “Federal funds are not targeted to those most in need, are not targeted to strengthen existing communities and are not targeted to places where people have economic opportunities.”
However, I would argue that the American Dream as realized in these suburban archetypes is not about the 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath house itself, but the claiming of that space through personalizing the base home model according to the home owner's priorities. In this way, developer kit houses act as an efficient and affordable way to obtain a basic form of the all the elements required by the suburban home owner, so that upgrades need only be applied where the homeowner sees value in doing so.
Out of the Box proposes a direct collaboration between the architect and the homeowner to develop radical personalizations tailored to the homeowner. The kit home becomes a base material, and is itself hacked to express individuality through suburban materiality. By specifically targeting the DIY homeowner, the act of collaboratively designing and physically making actualizes the owners claim on the home. If such partnerships can be realized at a broad level, not only can the logic of housing as equity begin to be broken down, but current homeowners can gain homes to truly call their own.
Organized as wall fragments, this 3-part installation is one possible instantiation of the homeowner-architect collaboration, in which I play both parts. Exploring my own personal interests in acoustics, algorithms, and building processes not for their function, but their potential for whimsy, I hope to inspire the homeowner to engage their own imagination.
"I think that the ideal space must contain elements of magic, serenity, sorcery, and mystery."
attributed, Metamorphosis: Creative Imagination in Fine Arts Between Life-Projects and Human Aesthetic Aspirations
This piece explores the non-planar expressive possibilities of a drywall and stud frame construction system through principles of thick origami to implement a parabolic acoustic mirror.
This piece explores the inherent sound characteristics of material and shape through nodal stiffening of resonant mode shapes.
This piece uses a simple string to offer alternate measurement and form generating systems for constructing complex curved surfaces.
Candidate for M.Arch I, Princeton University, Spring 2023
