'The word ‘project’, which is almost always as a noun, seems to have lost the association with its verb, ‘to project’, meaning to cast forward, literally to extend outward. The verb ‘project’ thus encapsulates the essence of an architect’s job, where casting into the future, making plans, literally and conceptually for the future - an intense speculation of a very specific nature - is the work method employed.'
‘Habitus: a social anthropology of the contemporary Dublin house extension’,
Michael Pike, Emmet Scanlon et al., 2011
The field of altering, reconfiguring, and extending dwellings is one that is thoroughly researched already. There are examples of sociologists studying the work of architects, such as Boudon’s work on Le Corbusier’s housing at Pessac (Boudon, 1966), as well as architects applying sociologists’ theories to buildings to better understand the abstract concept of inhabitation (Pike & Scanlon, 2011). Whilst my design work from the second semester focused more on how to design a house that is easily understood, thus adaptable to the needs of its user, my research this semester is instead about existing, occupied homes in my area, and how they have been extended. As Ray Lucas (2020, pg. 45) puts it, ‘home is a perpetually unfinished project and is constituted of what we do there’. Not only will how one uses certain spaces change as time goes on, thus changing the space itself, but new occupants will also result in a more extensive modification of the house. Be it new demands or new users, the ‘continuum’ (Lucas, 2020, Pg. 45) of spatial changes is often expressed through modification to the fabric of the home.
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The premise of this thesis is to begin to combine the intangible, in some ways invaluable, aspects of a person’s home, with the carbon impact that it construction as a house.. Anthropologist Ray Lucas (2020, Pg.45) states it is in domestic spaces ‘where we tend to have the greatest agency.’ As the home is considered a ‘perpetually unfinished project’, can the significant alterations to the house’s built fabric be done in a way that respects the embodied carbon of the existing, whilst also appreciating future changes occurring? Most importantly, how do we as architects represent the spaces that homeowners hold dear with our knowledge of embodied carbon inefficiencies in a way that begins to discuss carbon, not as a malignant presence, but a positive design constraint to be considered from early stages?
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