Semester 2:
In the early stage of the project two ‘characters’, an Ecologist and an Anthropologist, were derived from the site analysis and emerging ecological and social concerns of the rural site (Scott, 2005; Stevens, 2004; Woods, 2011). My brief for the semester was to design two contrasting domestic spaces for these characters, which allowed me to explore various ideas about both fields of work, as well as broader ideas around culture, society, ‘nature’ and ecology. Attempting to design the different domestic settings, and the various analysis and research that went along with it, helped to develop the theory in the dissertation. It also allowed me to understand domestic space as a set of relationships, a way of living in the landscape, taking inspiration from Ingold’s idea of ‘Taskscape’ (1993), and drawing from earlier theory from Lefebvre around the benefits of a ‘lived landscape’.
Anthropologist
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Ecologist
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Semester 3:
It is in Semester 3 that I attempted to really expand the notion of domesticity and dwelling, to account for the different agencies at play highlighted from my Semester 2 research. Taking the ideas from both Semester 2 houses with me, but using the Anthropologist’s house as a starting point (as this had been the most developed), a new brief was developed, folding the dualism previously set up between the two spaces, between ‘Nature and Culture’, into one domestic project. The project sought to further interrogate the way in which we inhabit landscape. The research question: how do we design a domestic landscape that accommodates both human and non-human actants? Sitting behind is the question of how narrative can inform the design process.
To further explore domesticity and the ideas I was researching, I returned to my original starting point, the fictional and subjective literature (The Caravan Family ([1945] 2002), John McGahern’s That They May Face the Rising Sun (2002), The Vibrant House (2017) etc). I made several drawings around this topic, attempting to unravel or ‘segment’ the domestic settings and relations of specific contexts in the literature to gain an understanding of them while also exploring new types of drawing and representation. I drew 'episodes' from the literature onto the Semester 2 domestic space, in the aims to open up responsive designs in the context of the site.
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In line with Haraway's theory of Becoming-with, I analysed the animals that were afforded protection through human Habitat Directives (which in turn affects how the land is used), and used this information to inform the site plan, as well as temporal narratives of when humans and animals used the site and similarly when they used buildings i.e. Swallows nesting in buildings in the summer.
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