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Minimal dwellings such as caravans, narrow boats, and lakeside bungalows at Cosgrove Lakes in Milton Keynes find a way of living that efficiently adapts to fluctuating climatic conditions while stimulating social exchange. With the paradox of increasing population and environmental deterioration, the project learns from such living typologies to propose a community of minimum dwellings for maximum social living on a floodplain site adjacent to the Cosgrove Lakes holiday park. Traces of circular stone Roman kilns and domestic ovens remain on-site. On our trip to Grymsdyke farm, a kiln and oven activated our social activities. Therefore, the proposed dwellings are anchored by a kiln and oven for heating, making, and sharing.
The post-digital architectural practice of drawing and machine-learning, critically reconfigures the notion of conventional dwelling by seeing time and temperature as agents of social interaction. By breaking down the rigid enclosures of the room, the dwelling is minimised through multiplicities of space but maximised for social exchange. This form of dwelling finds harmony between our healing environment, fluctuating climate, and human sociality.
A dialogue of analogue and digital machine learning drawings formed the project design process.
The drawing surface was a plane for activation where spatial inhabitations of the house were translated and iterated through the machine learning and hand-drawing dialogic process.
The 300ºC kiln firing room is activated in the morning. The residual heat warms adjacent spaces, surfaces, and stairs, as they are reinterpreted for living in the afternoon and evening.
Allographic processes of architectural drawing are reflected in the dwelling, where each element of the house becomes a plane for activation within a shared landscape.
The tempered and timed dwelling is minimised through multiplicities of space but maximised for social exchange. The film shows how the houses developed through the processes of drawing, machine learning, and translation.