House of the Engineer
Personal Project (2017-Present)
Vinegar Hill, New York
Exterior and Interior Axonometrics
Proposal: to design a series of Houses that carry the spirit of The Aleph by Jorge Luis Borges
Project Status
Ongoing
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Houses of the Aleph, Part 1: The Engineer takes place in Vinegar Hill, Brooklyn. It is a workshop for the engineer to use for rebuilding an engine; there is also an apartment upstairs. Before it can be inhabited, the architecture is built slowly over time by the engineer. This project is a work in progress.
Sounds is unique in its ability to capture simultaneity; we can hear many things at once. To recreate the literary effect of The Aleph, a space is formed like a musical instrument for the reverberation of the sound of an engine roaring. Each part of the engine is like a player in an orchestra. They all come together in symphony.
Related Project Pages
In The Aleph, Borges transcends the bounds of his written medium. A sentence written from left to right is no longer sequential and finite. This is no beginning, middle, or end. The contradictions and encounters force us passed a language of symbols. It is both a description and performance that captures a previously inconceivable experience. We must use our imagination to project into uncharted territory beyond. The casual reader in us is cast aside as the dreamer takes hold. We quickly become lost in a web of images, uncertain how we entered or how we will escape, but this is irrelevant. Entering the vast empty space means leaving time behind. I see accumulations rather than instances. I imagine a world all around me, all at once. Borges makes use of a small iridescent sphere, but it is really about an experience we are all familiar with in our own way. The Aleph is about fixating on the space behind thought, allowing the flood of memories, imagined pasts, futures, and dense presents to surround us like a rising pool. To look inside is to submerge. I propose a series of houses that carry the spirit of The Aleph. There explorations are retellings of that vast and precious discovery within the three centimeter sphere.
Each site becomes a playground for uncovering forgotten pasts,a wandering through accumulated time. Each house is the record of a memory relived in the present, a theater where the actor remembers a secret.
Site Map
The House of the Engineer is a house to construct an engine.
The House of the Engineer is a house to construct an engine.
Exterior Generative Studies 1
Exterior Generative Studies 2
Interior Generative Studies 1
Interior Generative Studies 2It is an instrument for the inward concentration of light and the outward expansion of sound.
Axonometric of Existing Site
Axonometric of ProposalConstruction Sequence
1. Plant Trees
2. Erect 3 x 5 Grid of Steel Columns (consult neighbors)
3. Attach Temporary Fabric across the Tops of the Columns stretched tight, connected at the corners.
4. Start Engine Construction
5. Built the Form Work for the Instrument
6. Begin Casting the Instrument (in layers)
7. Complete Casting the Instrument (and Remove Form Work)
8. Construct the Spiral Staircase
9. Lay Floor for the Upper Level, it might be sheet metal
10. Lay Bricks of the Outer Shell
11. Build Roof Enclosure for the Upper Level (or keep the fabric?)
12. Engine Construction:
a. Complete the Engine Construction, or
b. Do Not Complete the Engine Construction
13. Inhabit the Upper Level Apartment, duration unknown
14. Succumb to Nature over Time
Exterior Entrance Perspective
Exterior & Interior AxonometricsPersonal Projects
Architect, Artist, Writer
Architect, Artist, Writer