Scaffoldings in domestic architecture

Abstract

Scaffoldings often make the buildings look intriguing, overlapping and obscuring areas that are about to change and evolve. The article explores ways architecture can engage the inhabitant as an active participant in the design process. It discusses the scaffolding as a design continuum that provides opportunities for the architecture to continually adjust and reconfigure. It explores intersections of architecture with visual arts, such as surrealist photography, painting and filmmaking, emphasizing on the motion of the human body and how studying relevant examples might offer propositional opportunities to architectural design. A design outcome of my research practice, discussed in the article, is the design of an experimental dwelling titled Analogical House. To unpack in more depth, it focuses on one of the domestic fragments of the dwelling – the Staircase – and the iterative design experiments that inform its design process. A new type of architectural machine – The Darkroom Probe – is developed to explore the dwelling by creating a series of architectural drawings through a series of prototypes and photographic set pieces. Their findings, often analogue and digital hybrids, gradually form the Analogical House.