Alterations, Additions, Systems

This studio explored residential alterations and additions as systems entangled with other systems—which extend beyond individual architects, projects, and clients. The activity of renovating was framed as a practice, like many others, that is already forming how we live in relation to existing buildings and some of the conditions of the architect’s labour, such as its distribution, valorisation, and who can access this labour.

In the early phase of the semester, students analysed systems across a sample of example projects. This analysis drew upon methods associated with both architecture and the social sciences. Each project in the sample takes somewhat of a particular position on what living is and what the architect’s contribution is to living, and they were selected with this consideration. Included in the sample were projects by three emerging architectural practices, Office MI-JI, Niimori Jamison and JDH.A, who joined the studio for a series of in-class workshops.

The later phase of the semester involved students proposing alterations and additions on three sites with varied existing conditions and histories. The systems investigated earlier in the semester guided these proposed renovations, whereby the architectural students’ labour was distributed across multiple sites, client groups, and time scales.