Architects' representation of residential uses. From Empty Spaces to No Space at All?

Ledent, Gérald;Courbebaisse, Audrey
(2023) ENHR Conference : Urban regeneration – shines and shadows — Location: Lodz, Pologne (28.June.2023)

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This article explores the representation of inhabitant uses by architects in housing plans. To address this issue, housing plans are examined from various periods, from architecture manuals that figure domestic architecture (Serlio, Le Muet, Blondel, etc.), unbuilt projects, to contemporary proposals. In these plans, the attention lies on three types of traces of use and users found in housing plans: text, furniture and markers of human, plant or animal life. While distinguishing various concepts such as function, uses, fixed or non-stationary, standardized or non-standardized furniture, this analysis provides information about the type of use drawn by the architects, and leads us to outline three possible interpretations of the meaning to be given to the traces observed, relating to measurement, instructions of use and the inclusion of the plan in a wider spatio-temporal context. Finally, we identify two extreme milestones in the architects’ representations of uses and users, ranging from drawings of domestic spaces without use to drawings of domestic uses without space. At the risk of seeing the very scene of inhabitant practices – architecture - disappear?
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Ledent, G., & Courbebaisse, A. (2023). Architects’ representation of residential uses. From Empty Spaces to No Space at All? ENHR Conference : Urban regeneration – shines and shadows, Lodz, Pologne. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/28100