House for a Housewife

Year: 1998

Status: Paper Project

Photo Credit: manthey kula

Based on Olav Duun’s novel Medmenneske from 1929.

What is specific about the space of a housewife is that the other members of the household leave to lead their day outside the home; at work, in school or preschool while the housewife is left at home, experiencing the world through the lives of the others. The house – which is constructed in folded steel plates – is about spatial quality depending on human interaction.

There are five rooms, five members of the family. Each room has a full opening towards the outside, letting in maximum amount of light. The spaces between these rooms, the kitchen and living rooms, have no windows. The amount of light getting into the common space is thus depending on each inhabitant’s willingness to participate in the family.