Dreaming Domesticity, Sheltering Speculations - Using film to reimagine how we live today and tomorrow
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Dreaming Domesticity, Sheltering Speculations
Using film to reimagine how we live today and tomorrow
Mark E Breeze + Katie Kasabalis
Experimental 17
Architectural Association School of Architecture
2021-2022
Dreaming Domesticity, Sheltering Speculations
Using film to reimagine how we live today and tomorrow
This year, EX17 will examine the spaces we call ‘home’ and imagine alternative ways for living together,
using filmmaking as its primary method of exploration. New social norms, diverse family structures,
advancements in technology, and most recently a global pandemic have placed new demands on what we
have traditionally called ‘home’. The boundaries between resting, playing, working, socialising, and learning
have become increasingly blurred, raising key questions about privacy, community, property, ownership,
domesticity, health, and equity. We will critically examine how these constantly shifting patterns can create
architectures of collective belonging.
Deliberately wedged between the real and the virtual, EX17 harnesses the potential of film as an analytical,
explorative, and representational tool, strategy, and technique to develop a new architecture of time, space,
and affect. The unit encourages rampant experimentation with the filmic medium to document, analyze
and question what housing is, what it can do, and what it can be, both in itself and within the urban fabric.
(No prior filmmaking experience is necessary - just a keen interest in testing the medium and its techniques).
We will constantly move between filmmaking, drawing and model making to examine the spaces we inhabit
and the patterns of our existence.
The unit will combine historical and theoretical readings and guest lectures on both housing, and
filmmaking, so students can rigorously focus their interests and take a considered position. EX17 will focus
on the site of King’s Cross, London, but we will make unit trips to a range of significant housing projects
throughout the UK. In doing so we will explore the ‘home’ as a place of individual freedom and collective
imagination, a private sanctuary, and a public stage from which we broadcast ourselves to the world. We
will question how the ‘home’ can make us and our planet healthier, while addressing racial, gender, and
environmental issues. The unit will challenge the persistent myth of the nuclear family and reconsider the
architecture that contains and reproduces it. Together, we will test the boundaries of the ‘domestic sphere’
today and envision radically different domestic environments.
01
Projective Realities, Keqin Cao, EX17, 2021
What is the future of domesticity? Living Machines, Yolande Wang, EX17, 2021
Preliminary Project for Microenvironment, Ettore Sottsass, 1971
What are the boundaries of the ‘domestic sphere’?
Sliding into Domesticity, Won Ho Lee, EX17, 2021
Sliding into Domesticity, Won Ho Lee, EX17, 2021
Methodology
Term 1
Film / Shelter: Speculative Observation. In Term 1 students will examine the spaces we call ‘home’ and the
daily rituals that give it meaning. We will begin by using film to reveal the multiple and complex realities
of domestic space today. Using both existing smartphone technologies as well as other filmic devices
such as pin-hole cameras, the students will produce a series of quick, rough and experimental audiovisual
commentaries. These analytical films will be then re-examined and mined for their properties, procedures
and operational characteristics in them as the basis of a new construction. Through drawings, models and
films, we will map how the body moves through space and time, and question how daily rituals and bodily
functions can restructure the domestic experience. We will understand the home not only as a typology, but
also as an instrument for living that evolves over time.
Through fieldwork we will conduct critical research on existing housing typologies across London and the
UK. Together we will advance our understandings of existing, historic, and utopian ideas of human sheltering
and we will create an inventory of collective housing. Central to this analysis will be a critical examination of
how these spatial interventions can build vibrant communities and minimise their environmental impact, so
as to explore richer opportunities for pro-actively responding to the Climate Emergency. Each student will
define their individual attitudes towards the notion of ‘home’ and the boundaries of the ‘domestic sphere’.
They will test the limits of visual representation to envision radically different domestic environments. In
parallel, CMS workshops throughout the term will help students to develop their skills in a range of media
– including film, drawings, photomontages, and writing. By the end of the term each student will have
developed a concise individual design brief.
Term 2
Architecture / Shelter: Houses of Tomorrow, Today. In Term 2 we will actively engage with our selected site
in London. Students will work in groups to analyze the contextual realities of the site and document their
findings through a series of mappings. Using film as an investigative tool, students will conduct fieldwork to
reveal aspects of the site that inspire them - from its histories, ecologies, cultures, and fashions, to its sounds,
materialities, and olfactory sensations. Emphasis will be placed on each student developing their own ideas,
intuitions, and agendas within the framework of the unit. Although drawings and physical model-making
will form the basis of design development, film will remain ever present as a tool to be exploited at every
stage of the design process. Students will develop site specific architectural proposals and through design
iterations will test the capacity of architectural form to accommodate changing lifestyles, new definitions of
family, evolving notions of privacy and to respond to the pressing environmental challanges of today. Term
2 will end with questioning how these architectural interventions can serve as a catalyst for a larger urban
project, asking whom they serve, and what social, political, and cultural values they work to enable.
Term 3
Architecture / Film: Making Shelter Anew. Term 3 will focus on the final synthesis of the investigations.
Students will concentrate on refining and producing a fully developed and innovatively represented,
projective architectural response. With an emphasis on film, EXP17 will provide a space for students to
challenge conventional means of representation. We will work on finalising our hybrid techniques of
observing, analysing, and creating the time, space, and affect of new domesticities. We will experiment
with ways to deliver the final projects through audiovisual installations, full scale models and drawings. The
final representation of the projects will act as an extension of the projects themselves by challenging the
ways we understand domesticity as a product and as an experience.
07Translations, Yuxiang Zheng, EX17, 2021
How can we use film to account for, question and describe the everyday?
Chronophotographic study of man pole vaulting, Étienne Jules Marey, 1890Translations, Minhyung Kim, EX17, 2021
Translations, Minhyung Kim, EX17, 2021
Technical Studies
In EX17 we believe that powerful architectural propositions are rooted in both imagination and pragmatic
considerations. The unit will follow ETS Option 2 and will work closely with ETS tutors to support students
in their project development. We will explore material processes, tectonic considerations as well as the
integration of imaginative environmental solutions. Students will be encouraged to use one key technical
element as the driver for the development of their architectural propositions. Strategically responding to
the Climate Emergency through the design and construction of your project will be vital for successful
completion of ETS.
Living Machine, Yolande Wang, EX17, 2021
12How will we live together? The Curated Void, Wai Sun Helen Cheung, Ex17, 2021
How can we use film to create a different architecture?
Messy Living, Kin Ho Tse, EX17, 2021Working Together
The material covered through the terms will be
interactively presented through a series of lectures,
design prompts, exercises, workshops, films and
reviews. We will meet twice a week on Tuesdays and
Fridays, and we will have special screenings in the AA
Cinema throughout the year. We will invite external
collaborators - filmmakers, designers, photographers,
and urban researchers - that will join us periodically
in the form of seminars, pin-ups, and reviews in order
to provide you with project specific feedback and
facilitate in depth discussions. Central to the ethos of
the unit is your commitment to develop a year-long
project rooted in your independent curiosities and
interests. To help this process we will all share ideas,
thoughts, films, questions, provocations and visual
references constantly and systematically. As a group,
we will develop a shared body knowledge for each of
us to tap into to develop our ideas and design agendas.
You will be constantly searching for what inspires you.
You will keep testing how you transform and represent
your ideas.
You will be developing your own individual understandings
of what architecture can be, can do, and can mean for
you, for others, for now, and for the future. (And you’ll be
able to articulate these clearly).
We will be supporting you to be proactive and provocative.
We will be helping you to master traditional
representational skills, so you can modify and ditch
them thoughtfully as you develop your own interests and
approaches.
We will challenge you to always engage meaningfully with
the world around you and to take a position on social,
environmental, political, and cultural issues through your
architecture.
15How can the ‘home’ accommodate different lifestyles?
The Dollhaus, Jennifer Bonner, MALL, 2017The Curated Void, Wai Sun Helen Cheung, Ex17, 2021
Timeline
Term 1
w01 Introduction
w02 AudioVisual Commentaries
w03 Imaging
w04 Analytical Drawings
w05-06 Analytical Models
w07 Term 1 Midterm
w08-09 Inventory of Collective Housing
w10 Site Visit
Critical Positions
Brief Design
w11 Term 1 Submission Hand-In
w12 Term 1 Final Jury
Term 2
w01 Progress Reviews
w02 Getting (Site) Specific
w03-04 First Moves
w05-06 Development
w07 Term 2 Midterm Crit
w08-10 Refinement
w09 3rd Year OPT 2 TS Interim Jury
w10 2nd Year Previews
w11 3rd Year Previews
Term 3
w01 Progress Jury
3rd Year TS submission
w02 Visualization Workshop
w03-05 Final Representation
w06 Unit Final Review
w07 2nd Year Tables
w08 3rd Year Tables
w09 External Examination
18How do we redefine collective living? Sliding into Domesticity, Won Ho Lee, EX17, 2021
Resources
Some Readings
Allen, S. (1999) Points + Lines: Diagrams and Projects for the City. Princeton Architectural Press, Princeton NJ.
Barthes, R. (2013) How to Live Together: Novelistic Simulations of Some Everyday Spaces. Columbia University
Press, New York NY.
Breeze, M. (ed.) (2021) Towards an Architecture of the Cinematic: Architecture, Arts, and the Sciences. Bloomsbury,
New York NY.
Bruno, G. (1997), Site-seeing: Architecture and the Moving Image. Wide angle. 19 (4), 8-24.
Bruno, G. (2018) Atlas of Emotion: Journeys in Art, Architecture, and Film. Verso, New York NY.
Bruno, G. (2007) Public Intimacy: Architecture and the Visual Arts. MIT Press, Cambridge MA.
Debord, G. (1967/ 2021) The Society of the Spectacle. Critical Editions, London.
Deleuze, G. (2004) Difference and Repetition. Bloomsbury, New York NY.
Doane, M.A. (2002) The Emergence of Cinematic Time. MIT Press, Cambridge MA.
Eisenstein, S., Bois, Y-A (ed) (1937/ 1999) Montage and Architecture. Assemblage. (1989) 10, 10-31.
Foster, H. (2002) The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture. New Press, New York NY.
Foucault, M., Miskowiec, J. (1986) Of Other Spaces. Diacritics, 16 (1), 22-27.
Greenberg, C., (1939) Avant-Garde. Partisan review, 6(5), 34.
Jameson, F. (1992) Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Verso, New York NY.
Koolhaas, R. (1978) Delirious New York: a Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan. Verso, New York NY.
Kracauer, S. (1960) Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality. Princeton University Press. Princeton, N.J.
Lavin, S. (2003) The Temporary Contemporary. Perspecta. 34, 128–135.
Lefebvre, H. (1998) The Production of Space. Trans. D. Nicholson-Smith. Blackwell, Oxford.
Lynch, K. (1960) The Image of the City.MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
Tschumi, B. (2000) Event-cities 2. MIT Press, Cambridge MA.
Tschumi, B. (2012) Architecture Concepts: Red is Not a Color. Rizzoli, New York NY.
Williams, L. (1994) Viewing Positions: Ways of Seeing Film. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, N.J.
Vidler, A. (1996) The Explosion of Space: Architecture and the Filmic Imaginary. In: D.Neumann (ed.) Film
Architecture: Set Designs from Metropolis to Blade Runner. Prestel, Munich.
Some Films
Parasite (Jong Boon Ho, 2019)
If Buildings Could Talk... (Wim Wenders & SANAA, 2010)
Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola, 2003)
Los Angeles Plays Itself (Thom Anderson, 2003)
Russian Ark (Alexander Sokurov, 2002)
In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-Wai, 2000)
Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2000)
Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders, 1987)
Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)
Playtime (Jacques Tati, 1968)
Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa, 1950)
Architecture d’Aujourd’hui (Pierre Chenal & Le Corbusier, 1930)
Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (Walter Ruttman, 1927)
Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1926)
A Romance of the Rail (Edison and Porter, 1903)
The Arrival of a Train (Lumiere Brothers, 1895)
20How can our ‘home’ make us and our planet healthier?
Deforestation, Paulo WhitakerWhat is the role of ecology in reimagining how we live today and tomorrow?
Slow House, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, 1988Who We Are
Mark E Breeze is a Harvard-trained licensed architect and an Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker
who combines creative practice, research, and teaching. His interdisciplinary work explores the theories,
practices, and forms of sustainable shelter. He is the founder of the architecture and film collaborative
Spatial Realities, and the Founding Chair of the University of Cambridge Sustainable Shelter Group.
Prior to joining the Architectural Association, Mark was Director of Studies in Architecture at St.John’s
College, University of Cambridge. He has taught and served as guest critic in the US, UK, and China. Mark
has worked as an architect in Beijing, Boston, London, and New York, for Annabelle Selldorf, Colin St.John
Wilson, MJ Long, and Foster + Partners; he has worked as a filmmaker with Discovery, Dreamworks, and
Iris Pictures. Mark received his bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate from Cambridge as a University Senior
Scholar, he graduated from the Harvard GSD as a John F. Kennedy Scholar, and he completed his post-
doctorate as a Sally Hogg Fellow at the University of Oxford.
Katie (Kyriaki) Kasabalis is an architect, urbanist and educator with a passion for design that promotes
livable, equitable and sustainable cities. She believes that how, where and with whom we live and work is
at the core of what cities are about, a principle that she explores through her work and teaching. She is the
Design Director of Kasawoo, an interdisciplinary design studio, a Visiting Senior Fellow at LSE Cities and
co-founder of Future Current, an experimental platform for creatives to connect and collaborate over food.
Prior to joining the Architectural Association, Katie taught as an Assistant Professor at University of
Virginia, visiting faculty at Cornell University and as guest critic at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Pratt, UCLA,
Syracuse and Northeastern Universities. She has worked as an architect at Foster + Partners, Richard Meier
& Partners and Weiss/Manfredi in New York City. Katie received a Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell
University, where she was awarded the Charles Goodwin Medal. She holds a Master of Architecture in
Urban Design with distinction from Harvard University, where she received the Druker Fellowship and the
award for Excellence in Urban Design.
24Still from Living Machines, Yolande Wang, EX17, 2021
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