Assembling Places

A study on the possibilities of place-making by systematically separating the traditional responsibilities of the wall as an architectural element. Walls usually serve several simultaneous structural, enveloping and distributional duties. The project consists in designing a house where four distinct but interacting types of walls are present, each with a well defined duty. Each necessary but deliberately insufficient in itself: one provides the structure; another is a continuous skin for enclosure and partition; still another solely weatherproofs and, finally, one filters the light and grants privacy.

The four walls function as layers with the capacity of interplay, while retaining their identity. The places resulting from these boundaries assert their presence and function in view of the character bestowed by the form of their enclosure. The choice of material, assembly, texture and color in unique correspondence to each boundary's usefulness, complete the experience of the inhabitant and architectural form comes about.