PRIMT.ht | 1999 - 2000 |

"It is the same in architecture as in all other arts: its principles are founded on simple nature, and nature’s process clearly indicates its rules." Marc-Antoine Laugier

This response to the Primitive Hut is based on an understanding of nature as a series of dynamic complex systems of growth at a molecular level. Contemporary considerations of ecology must be based on a model of multiple interconnected networks rather than singular stand-alone elements; a single primitive icon can no longer serve as arbiter of taste and language. The project uses a botanical approach loosely based on cell aggregation. Multiple objects of uniform size, initially close-packed in a plane, eventually result in a complex tissue or object field, a synthetic landscape composed of both the human-made and the natural. Whether individual or communal at a cellular level, the space is controlled by the inhabitant. Interior separation is provided by capillarity. The interactive neighboring objects could provide an even greater influence of surface tension at the epidermal layer shaping the major form of enclosure or building envelope. This surface, while providing the base description of ownership, is the key to the idea of plurality or object-object relationships.

Ultimately, this “seed program” will be preconditioned with infinite variables for both hard and soft relations. Hard (technical) factors include streetscape, climate, sun angles and materiality, while soft (creative) variables might include the feel of the artist, the logistics of living, the mood of the occupant, or other intangibles. In the critical dialectic of nature and technology in architecture, the twenty-first century provides fertile ground.