OCTANA: a domestic simulation of un-bounded desires

Project developed during the course “Design Studio II“ at Postgraduate Studies Program, Department of Architecture, University of Thessaly, Greece, 2012.

OCTANA: a domestic simulation of un-bounded desires

Octana is a diagrammatic approach in series of representations addressing boundaries as an architectural model in-flux. A dynamic version of massive dwelling emerges as a sequency of typological transformations. Formed as an upscaled urban pilotis, it attempts to "absorb" the city's expansion and to articulate Octana with the city. Thus boundaries are re-established within a dynamic system of determinations on the essence of inhabitation, in terms of collectivity.

Life in Octana itself performs a series of "bounded" social acts resisting, defying the initial intention of "constructing" an inhabited boundary. The primary pod for the citizen of Octana constitutes the fundamental abolition of the notion of private residency. Moreover, the pod is a communal loan, produced, borrowed and relaunched by and for the community, as is the lifetime of Octana's citizen. It is an "inadequate" machine for living -not autonomous- functioning within the swarm of pods, thus underlining the necessity of the singularity to live as a multitude.

Pods are plugging into commons, the inner-core of this negotiating zone, the vital core of social life. Commons are "remixed" piazza(s) by means of places that the raison d' etre of desires meet. They are also established on the cyberspace of the network used by the citizens and, in reverse, cyberspace is "demolished" for the shake of the physical presence in the common. The pod does not simulate a housing prototype. On the contrary, oikos, for this ever-moving citizen, is re-found within the juxtaposition of the pods’ motion trajectories.

Representations are describing sporadically the self-organisation of the common, followed by a mutating architectural form. Furthermore, individuality is redefined in the pursuit of familiarization, traced in snapshots. A new hybrid identity of the dweller is being dismembered and recollected opposing the fear and anonymity. Thus, through a narrative of snapshots, the dynamic environment of Οctana is being photographed in versions, following a fragmented evolution in time. The possible frames capture the case study during the shift of engagement - disengagement to collectivity.