An alternative look at anthropometric data used for residential design.
House Plans is a drawn record of many of the residential projects we have worked on as a studio. Each project is represented only in plan; a proposed plan, together with an existing plan where applicable.
"If anything is described by an architectural plan it is the nature of human relationships." Robin Evans
In the context of Robin Evans dictum, the collection of plans offers a reflection on the adaptation and creation of homes. By focusing solely on the plan, the distracting conversations of style and taste can be overlooked, allowing the changing focus of domestic space to be scrutinised.
Many of the properties are over one hundred years old and are being adapted to suit a more contemporary lifestyle. Some of the properties are being converted from other uses and some are new propositions.
We are passionate about the 'home' and the exploration of domestic space, and the relationships and social life played out in them. We became fascinated by architectural plans further to reading Robin Evans’ seminal essay; Figure, Door, Passage, and our own studies of floor plans stem from this origin in one way or another.
"We are interested in the house plan as a strategy for living." Robin Evans
To study the architectural house plan allows us a deeper understanding of our collective subliminal occupation of domestic space and reveals the changing social conventions of how we occupy space. Therefore, the plan offers a medium through which to explore and perhaps challenge spatial conventions in the home.
The aim of our proposals is not to make unconventional domestic space per se, but to provoke questions about these spaces - and the social life played out therein - as we explore, draw, build, transform and live in these spaces.
"We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us." Winston Churchill