Nick Roseboro

Traditionally, we refer to the house as the structure to protect the intimacy of the family. It provides shelter and separates us from work but also supports it. The house is the space that protects the biological life of the occupants and encompasses an envelope with subdivisions into smaller spaces—what we call rooms. Such rooms present a defined hierarchy—what we call privacy, set forth by the homeowner, allowing individuals to separate from the rest of the occupants—a value directly connected to the notion of the “traditional family.” The division of rooms and their functions reiterates the nuclear-family structure. It allows for the separation of the family from the outside world and of each individual within the house. This course explicates the house, home, and housing as a space we all inhabit and sometimes take for granted. We live in times of housing scarcity, climate adjustments, new family structures, and real-estate development that hinder architects, planners, and designers from proposing spaces for non-homogenized living based on the traditional family and the work-life paradigm that fuels our current housing. This course aims to question the house, its form, sustainability, temporality, production, and reproduction, as well as how to answer, propose, and study its elements for better living not only for “one family” but for all.

This course reexamines the notion of the void not as land ripe for building real-estate capital but as space for cultural expression. Students choose a void from infrastructural areas, parks, empty unused buildings, or land that has often transformed with histories of erasure and dispossession. We can discover the urban void in many forms, from abandoned retail spaces to empty lots. Urban planner Bernardo Secchi in 1984 described urban voids concerning industrial typologies as “urban fractures, areas with no current function or use or character,” while architect Ignasi de Sola-Morales in 1995 described them as “terrain vague,” which were abandoned “land in its potentially exploitable state.” How can we define “the void” without understanding a solid? The solid and void relationship can be observed in the Nolli Map of Rome, with a solid-void/figure-ground representation of urbanity. One can argue that this fundamental tool is also used in suburban and rural areas to record and derive data for our use to plan, build, design, and destroy more buildings and irresponsibly inhabit the land. The idea of representing a solid as private and void as public is key, given that the public has a notion of belonging to the people of society and perhaps their perception of the environment that they shape. On the other hand, private is not private. An individual or a group can own a specific property. Is this true? And if so, how can we elaborate on these relationships toward a definition of the void that transgresses this limited solid-void notion? The course will unfold, analyze, and investigate the primary case study through its history, present, and eventual future by developing research through exercises that include, but are not limited to, drawing representation, experimental collages, and photomontages using the readings at its core. Questions arise about the aspects that characterize the voids and the contextual clues related to the community and cultural sedimentation. The goal is to put forth a project to design an intervention as a response to the research and promote commoning practices, whether it be housing, economic solidarity, or a place of care. What does the context need? Who is it for, and why? Responses could interface with political, economic, and social concerns with the varying matters that exist but also with an underlying conceptual underpinning of their interconnectedness of site, land, and the collective.

Work/labor are directly connected and drive reasoning for producing more commodities, people, and even art—extending our livelihoods further into the future. Leisure is a vital part of a system where labor is extracted from society and, in turn, yearns for time away from work or something in return. Some tensions lie in the decision-making process of wanting time from work and the rewards of that work that generate paradoxical circumstances. Workers give their labor and, in return, earn a conditioned status that is sought after and that perpetually feeds this cycle. The course looks at work typologies embedded within their leisure and the amenities used as a tool for greater work output. A question arises regarding the work/life vs. work/leisure paradigm and the blurred line between them. Counter examples include the festival as a site of leisure, the home, and more sites that function as a release for work—but is work still happening on these sites? Through drawing, collage, and mapping, students will identify the experiences in these spaces, how they function with or against the norms of society, and where the future of these spaces linked to “play” symbolizes for them. What aspects of leisure are necessity vs. desire, and what is the role of aesthetics in these places?

Defined by Ignacio Sola Morales as land in its exploitable state, urban voids have been a topic of discussion for quite some time. This course aims to reexamine the notion of the void not as land ripe for building real estate capital but, rather, as space for cultural expression. Students are given a list of different voids—infrastructural areas, parks, empty/unused buildings, and land that has transformed many times over with histories of erasure and dispossession. Exercises include visual representation via an exegetic collage of the assigned void. What are the colors of the voids? Do these colors and textures differ from their context? The project then would be to design an intervention as a response to the context of the chosen void. What does the context need? Who is it for, and why? Responses could interface with political, economic, and social concerns with the varying matter on our planet but also with an underlying conceptual underpinning of their interconnectedness of site, land, and the collective.