Blocks, Nadjim Bigou, 2015

The latency between the beginning and the end of a construction gives ways to a nomadic life in the future edifice which will host settled way of life. In this emerging building, workers destroy and construct, but also, eat, sit and move. On an instinctive thought, almost primitive, humans adapt to their environment. It is then that the powerful wall could become just as much a seat as stairs.

Indeed, the act creates the object, not the reverse. It is almost a « function follows form » in which the concept of an object is nomadic although the latter structure is fixed. For example, it would be possible to consider a stone as a proto-stool and a tree as a pole. There is no need to confine the chair to its only fonction as a seat when it is used as a stepladder as soon as we need to change a light bulb.

The immediate space can be interpret as the primary space, almost automatic, beyond the reason. Where human is an animal in its environnement. A space organised by stimuli received by the senses provoking some reflex answers which are supposed to be the most efficient to respond to a situation.

The smooth space as thinks Gilles Deleuze. The space which is not conceived by prejudices and definitions but by the body, an hyper local reference.

A world composed by things and not concepts. Concepts do not surround us but are the product of the relation body/space. To make it more understandable, I take the example of Hans Hollein who says that the begining of architecture is not the Laugier’s hut but a man, who shadows his face on a sunny day with a newspaper while reading it. The question is what is this journal at this precise moment ?

So everything is architecture as Hollein explains? Design, the fact of conceptualizing objects in fonction of a space would be innate. But then the written design history is quasi essentially related to the market and industries and reach the point where design throught the market dictate what should be a chair, a table, a plate etc.The chair stayed a chair whatever is its position, its use and whether the user is present or not. The object, (etymologically, objectum the fact of placing something in front of), is its own point of reference. The object is not define by the user but by its communication. The sweet and authoritarian communication defines the object in a Corbusean, predetermined world, without any situation or interpretation.

Though, there is here a clear relationship between the Modern Movement “less is more” and the efficiency of the primitive constructions. In fact it has even more, the understanding of the immediate environment and the objects that structure it in a primitive way, allows the user-designer to be (probably) more minimalist than the modernist.

« habiter » (the litteral translation of « habiter » is living which does not coincide with the idea I want to express). I would like to evoke the idea of spending time and space, as for man, animal or object.

« habiter » is all about transforming the space. These architectural phenomenons involve the concept of limit , whether physical or mental. The fact of living combined with limits define the territory. Whether it is for few few hours or for years, the occupation of space shows how the settlement leads to the optimization of space, whereas the nomadism gives it life.