A Model

Tokyo, Japan

About

Rad Louda & WRKSHPA Model
Definition: A schematic description of a system, theory, or phenomenon that accounts for its known or inferred properties and may be used for further study of its characteristics. A Model is a scaled-model in life-size proportion that represents a generic contemporary domestic environment. In 1972 was held at the MOMA in New York an important exhibition called Italy: The New Domestic Landscape. The exhibition presented an extremely rich and diverse collection of young and accomplished practices having in common an interest in what could or should be the future of our domestic environments. Retrospectively this exhibition is seen as the peak of a worldwide architectural phenomenon lead by a young generation of architects from the early 60's. Those architects were working on different models of our future. Most of their proposals took the form of small industrialized cells, functional and extremely flexible. Those domestic landscapes were considered as models for a new life style, able to solve or react to the new changes, to the images of the near future. Economical crisis, ecology, individualized and globalized life are some of the characteristics that the 70's share with nowadays. As young architects we are interested in how people before us dealt and reacted with their own contemporary conditions. Our project named ‘A Model’ explores the models of housing conceived at this time and try to propose a critical redefinition. The project is an 'a posteriori' model investigating the present and the banal. A Model is a representation of a dense and generic domestic landscape. A Model is a representation of a 150 sqft apartment. The space is organised in 4 parts. The minimal and sufficiently furnished apartment provides basic functions with as added value a personal outside space. Each furniture was conceived as an archetype of its function: a chair looks like a chair, a bed like a bed. A Model is entirely made of foam, a material used worldwide by architects to realise their volumetric studies, that is to say their model's research. Firstly, it was conceived in Brussels at a 1/5 scale. It was build and experimented in life-size proportion in Tokyo. A scaled-model at scale 1/10 of A Model will be shown soon in Ljubljana. As such, A Model is used as a global generic space. Meant to perfecly fit in a 20 ft container, the project takes, as its hard cover, that standard, industrial box, easily transportable and compilable, so often being a subject of exploration as a housing alternative from the early 60's till now. This project tries to investigate the blur existing between paper architecture and built one, between ideals and reality, A Model is not an utopy nor a distopy. A Model is a proposal for an one bed apartment made in foam designed as generic as possible. It is seen as one of the possible reactions of young architects towards the contemporary housing subject. A Model is not the representation of a project, the representation is the project. collapse