oooze
INFEASIBLE HOUSING IN INFEASIBLE SYSTEMS
THIRD YEAR STUDIO—TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
FALL 2017
INSTRUCTOR: VAHID VAHDAT ZAD
THIRD YEAR STUDIO—TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
FALL 2017
INSTRUCTOR: VAHID VAHDAT ZAD
OOOZE speculates on what political circumstances architecturally responsible housing can succeed in. Capitalism values spatial and fiscal responsibility rather than concerning itself with individual expression. Thus, a project that prioritizes the individual over fiscal responsibility must exist outside of capitalism. Because architecture is the first thing that tells us what our reality looks like, OOOZE seeks to defamiliarize the mundane in order to open up the everyday to an alternate understanding.
As Philip Johnson famously said, “Architecture is the art of how to waste space.” Significant architecture has to challenge conventions and stretch cultural boundaries by producing a level of allure and unfamiliarity. By simultaneously occupying the conditions of our current reality and speculating on what our reality could look like, we begin to expand our very concept of what it means to live as individuals or, as communities. OOOZE attempts to do this by following programmatic conventions of our current reality while celebrating the formal conditions of an alternate reality.
Speculative representations of the imagined real cross the boundaries between reality and fiction and over time allow fictions to influence our realities. A simple example of this is how Science Fiction films have shaped the reality of our world as technology has caught up to the fictional representations. This defamiliarization of realistic conventions sets in motion a shift in aesthetics. Likewise, great architecture should help us see past the limits of our ordinary reality.
As Philip Johnson famously said, “Architecture is the art of how to waste space.” Significant architecture has to challenge conventions and stretch cultural boundaries by producing a level of allure and unfamiliarity. By simultaneously occupying the conditions of our current reality and speculating on what our reality could look like, we begin to expand our very concept of what it means to live as individuals or, as communities. OOOZE attempts to do this by following programmatic conventions of our current reality while celebrating the formal conditions of an alternate reality.
Speculative representations of the imagined real cross the boundaries between reality and fiction and over time allow fictions to influence our realities. A simple example of this is how Science Fiction films have shaped the reality of our world as technology has caught up to the fictional representations. This defamiliarization of realistic conventions sets in motion a shift in aesthetics. Likewise, great architecture should help us see past the limits of our ordinary reality.
