Tag: domestic

Open Wide / Wide Open

Open Wide / Wide Open

Angharad Davies

We started with six words: a short-term dwelling for an artist then added:   with a child What adaptations have you made to your domestic space since having a child? / What adaptations have you made to your work space since having a child? / How / When / Where do… Read More

Adam Bede’s ‘Discourse on Building’ (1859)

Adam Bede’s ‘Discourse on Building’ (1859)

George Eliot

This speech on building – and architects – was made by Adam to Mr Poyser in Chapter 49 of George Eliot’s novel. It was pointed out to us by the Eliot scholar, Dermot Coleman, who added that ‘it is generally a safe bet that views on such matters expressed by Adam… Read More

Drawing Sacred Forests and Courtyards in South Benin

Drawing Sacred Forests and Courtyards in South Benin

Quentin Nicolaï

The following conversation between the editors of Accattone and Quentin Nicolaï was first published in Accattone 6 (2019). It documents research carried out by Quentin Nicolaï in Abomey, Benin, between January 2014 and June 2018. Drawing Matter would like to thank the author and the magazine’s editors for allowing us reproduce… Read More

Writing Prize 2020: Domestic Space, Registered

Writing Prize 2020: Domestic Space, Registered

Laura Bonell and Daniel López-Dòriga

Around 200 AD, a map of the city of Rome was carved on marble at a scale of approximately 1:240. It measured 18 meters wide by 13 meters high and comprised 150 marble slabs hung on an interior wall of the Templum Pacis. The Forma Urbis Romae or Severan Marble Plan, as… Read More

Pan Scroll Zoom 4: Pezo von Ellrichshausen

Pan Scroll Zoom 4: Pezo von Ellrichshausen

Sofia von Ellrichshausen, Fabrizio Gallanti and Mauricio Pezo

This is the fourth in a series of texts edited by Fabrizio Gallanti on the challenges in the new world of online architectural teaching and, particularly, on the changing role of drawings in presentations and reviews. In this episode Fabrizio interviews Mauricio Pezo and Sofia von Ellrichshausen of Pezo von… Read More

Qamutit Home

Qamutit Home

Konstantin Ikonomidis

Qamutit (Inuktitut: ᖃᒧᑏᒃ): an Inuit-designed sled for transport on snow and ice. This conceptual sledge-house exhibits a catalogue of ideas and perceptions regarding the notion of ‘home’, dissolving the boundaries between building and environment and between building and meaning. To regard a house as a home is to regard a… Read More

Paul László: Hertz Fallout Shelter

Paul László: Hertz Fallout Shelter

Christine Bolli

The mid-century architect Paul László knew what it was like to live in uncertain times. He served in both world wars, first for his native land and then for his adopted country. He was Hungarian-born and schooled in Vienna, and his earliest notable achievements were in Germany. László began to… Read More

Soane’s Designs for Combe House, Continued

Soane’s Designs for Combe House, Continued

Pierre du Prey

When Drawing Matter recently reproduced a preliminary ground plan for Combe House near Gittisham, Devon, by John Soane, I had a moment’s sudden recollection. Ptolemy Dean’s penetrating analysis of this precious if battered sheet of paper – entirely in the astonishingly fluid and energetic hand of the architect – set me to search… Read More

The wobbly line: Asplund, Johansson and the influence of Tessenow in Sweden 1915–1925

The wobbly line: Asplund, Johansson and the influence of Tessenow in Sweden 1915–1925

Jan Rydén

There is a drawing in a 1923 issue of the Swedish trade journal Byggmästaren (The Master-Builder). It is part of a presentation of a new three-storey house by the architect Cyrillus Johansson. To illustrate his text the architect has included photos and a drawing of the front elevation and a plan of… Read More

Soane: Energy and Frustration

Soane: Energy and Frustration

Ptolemy Dean

This seemingly benign-looking plan is in fact a thrilling drawing. It shows Sir John Soane’s cerebral struggles in attempting to resolve a number of key competing design elements in the planning of a country house. The drawing exudes energy and frustration. The challenge of designing buildings symmetrically is hard work… Read More

SUPA Architects: Naked Plans

SUPA Architects: Naked Plans

Christian Schweitzer and Ryul Song

This drawing, the first in our ‘Naked Plan’ series, overlaps 107 A3 sheets of construction drawings for House P, a private house in Pyeonchang-dong, Seoul (2013-15). Stripped in Autocad of all information, such as image, text and mtext, line weight, saturation and lightness, only the basic lines remain. Through the… Read More

Welfare Palace Hotel (1978)

Welfare Palace Hotel (1978)

Rem Koolhaas

In the appendix to Delirious New York, Rem Koolhaas’s retroactive manifesto for the island of Manhattan, the tacit logic of ‘Manhattanism’ is set free from its origins in the form of five architectural projects: The City of the Captive Globe, Hotel Sphinx, New Welfare Island, the Welfare Palace Hotel and the Floating Pool. Four of these… Read More