House of many rooms

Abstract

This thesis participates in the architectural construct of INSIDE and OUTSIDE. By means of a house with many rooms, the extremes of an inner, personal architecture contrast the extremes of an outer, public architecture.

Each room is an inner architecture of closure and definition. While an outer architecture of openness and expanse surrounds them.

One room is a bathroom of concentric cylinders. Another is a rectangular box with an upstairs bed, while another is a large cube with a smaller cube for a bed. Each room presents an inner architecture of almost crystalline purity. And each closes themself off from the others.

Despite their particularity, these rooms gather, while black and white steel panels unite and define the outer architecture of house, barely. A ring of stairways angles across the steel matrix on its way to a rooftop patio, allowing the surrounding forest to creep in. The outer architecture of house begins to dissolve into the forest, leaving only the inner architecture of room in tact. Only the closed, inner architecture, so personal that we do not share, resists the diffusion. Only the inner architecture of identity maintains its integrity. Only an inner architecture can contrast the outer architecture.

The lines drawn between an inner and outer architecture parallels those between public / private and individual / community. This thesis project draws the line between room and house, choosing to allow house to dissolve into the outer architecture of the surrounding forest while room assumes the role of an inner architecture. One conclusion of this thesis is that house deserves closure as well.

Architecture is responsible for both the inner and outer extremes of the inhabited world. The inner architecture demands closure and definition. The outer architecture demands openness and expanse.