An Architecture of Fiction
This work presents a series of architectural forms that serve as meditations on the concept of “the first house.” These pieces suppose architecture as device, dwelling and divination apparatus. The origins of the dwellings are unknown, but they are clearly reflective of their environment.Circumscribing (claiming territory – site) and building (making form and space) often follow ritual and these pieces envisage the results of those ritual acts.
My work is concerned with the potential for creating an architectural mythology, similar to that of science fiction. Science fiction has enough science to make it plausible while being fantastical to expand the imagination and inspire us to greater achievements. I believe it is possible to do the same with architecture. As a designer it is possible to create an architectural fiction set in identifiable contexts while expanding the notions of how and why we build and dwell. The Roman, Vitruvius and the French, Laugier, identified the primitive hut as the origins of dwelling. These examples are predicated on the human hegemony of nature as a raw material in service of architecture. In answer to this, I offer my own American Indian cultural view of nature as part of a continuum in which we play a role.Here humans, nature, spirits and other phenomena share responsibilities for marshaling resources and the consequences for not doing so.