Urban Housing in Barras Market, Glasgow
The project is a residential complex in Barras Market, Glasgow, drawing on a thesis of the relation between domesticity and labour. The project reacts against the rise of spaces during modernisation which were either too specific or too generic, encouraging only single use or vacuums of space with no intensity of life. This system separated live and work into a frictionless world, where people (and buildings) were treated as machines in a larger system. Architecture was employed to segregate activities and human relationships, removing the friction and ‘unnecessary’, limiting the experience of everyday life.
Through an exploration of pre-industrial precedents, my proposal attempts to return to the ancient overlapping of domesticity and labour to create a connected and social world full of activities where accidental encounters, thoughts, conversations and collaborations can occur. The collective room acts as the main spatial tool for the congestion of human interaction as well as the intimacy and civility of life. The architectural forms and facades are employed to create feelings of life and activity, and promote spaces with a cultural density for the inclusion of all people. With this I hope the inhabitants might attain a sensitivity as well as an intimacy with fellow humans and the environment in a social and open way of living.
