Solving Daily-life Architecture Problems: The Architectural Intelligence Behind Moroccan Interiors in Brussels
(2020)
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- Authors
Barkouch, Ghita 
- Abstract
- This article aims to define, analyse and thus prove the existence of an architectural skill, innate in every human being, but nonetheless refined through their life-long experience of inhabiting. According to the definition of the word ‘architecture’ given by the Mediationist Theory of Architecture (Pleitinx, 2019), an accurate definition of ‘architecture’ stands away from ‘the architect’s profession’ (De l’Orme, 1567; Grassi, 1980; Vitruvius, 1914 [1rst century BCE]) and closer to an anthropological work frame. Considered as a rational fact, the adopted definition of architecture refers to the intellectual moment of assigning forms to things (Pleitinx, 2019). Exploring the evolution of the concept of architecture, through first, professional and academic architecture, and second, vernacular architecture, this article develops a third type, inspired by the MTA, daily architecture. This last type, considered as the application of humans’ capacity to produce their habitat, to adapt, rearrange and transform it, is revealed in this article, through a corpus-based study of Moroccan immigrants’ housing in Brussels. Presenting a specific case in which the inhabitant furnishes their mid 19th century maison bourgeoise using a foreign furniture, the sedari, a traditional Moroccan furniture, this article aims to analyse the architectural adaptations and inventions, both formal and functional, that result from the meeting and hybridization of initially foreign dwelling habits and housing types. Through the scope of an architectural analysis chart drawn by the MTA, the case study aims not only to reveal the obvious aspects of the architectural adaptations, i.e the forms invented by the inhabitant, but to report on the rational operations related to their intellectual production, i.e the existing and potential formulations.
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Citations
Barkouch, G. (2020). Solving Daily-life Architecture Problems: The Architectural Intelligence Behind Moroccan Interiors in Brussels. In Space international conference (ed.), E-Proceedings - SPACE International Conferences September 2020 (p. p. 22-31). SPACE Studies Publications.