Wayne Schaap

December 10, 2010

Case Study: The Appliance House

The following are a series of diagrams produced to explore, form, body, techniques and space

relative to Alison and Peter Smithson's Appliance House, built as a house of the future in 1956. The

following diagramming exercises explore the potential for diagramming to be utilized as a generative

design technique, to explore and understand the relationships between form, body, technique and

space/time to develop design ideas.

Diagramming Form: The Appliance House

Alison and Peter Smithson designed The Appliance House for the Daily Mail's "Jubilee Ideal

Home Exhibition" in London in March of 1956 (Smith & Lewi, 2008). The Smithson's Appliance House

was an exploration of the future, an example of a house envisioned 25 years into the future. The form

created and the vision

explored definitely illustrates

a connection to the spirit of

the age and the beliefs of an

unknown future.

What was the age of

1956? Less than 10 years

after the end of World War

II, the atomic age had begun

and the space race was in full

swing. The 1950's saw the

invention of the colour

television and in 1956 the

first television remote, the

"Zenith Space Commander"

was introduced (Bellis, 2010).

The advertising age was in

full swing and consumerism

had become a new way of life in North America. The introduction and prolific use of technology in the

house in the form of appliances, promoted a world of convenience, while pushing the agenda of

consumerism. Appliances were streamlined and marketed for their, "simplicity of form and naked

materiality" (Smith & Lewi, 2008), that today invoke images of white Formica counter tops and glossy

surfaces of moulded plastic chairs. How does all of this translate into form? The result of the

programmatic elements was the creation of a flowing space where, "walls, furniture and appliances

appeared and disappeared as needed" (Smith & Lewi, 2008).

The program behind the creation of the Appliance House explored the modernist ideals of

simplicity while integrating the use of new technologies into the form. The exercise of creating form

from an idea of: technology, object desire, ownership, mould-ability, mobility, delight, concealment,

display, transformation, austerity, cleanliness, smoothness translated into an antiseptic architecture

that in its starkness could be mistaken for futuristic. The following diagrams are an exploration of form

connected to the above-mentioned list of words and are an attempt to understand the form of the

Appliance House.

The above diagram explores the idea of plastic mould-ability seen in the smooth pod-like forms

found inside the Appliance house. By replicating the flowing form of a line, structure begins to emerge

creating smoothness and density, not unlike the surfaces seen in the Appliance House.

The next diagram is about structural understanding, exploring the relationship between

structure and form. By diagramming major structural elements, spatial relationships will begin to inform

surface creation, the creation of the cellular walls and hidden spaces that flow throughout the Appliance

House.

The Appliance House is about technology, about the relationship between what is visible, and

what is invisible beneath. At the time, the Appliance House explored the latest in technology,

particularly the idea that, "technologies...made housework disappear" (Colomina, 2004). The final

diagram about form explores the idea of seeing and not seeing.

The Appliance House explored the limits of the imagination in 1956, and was displayed like a

sculptural installation, admired but not touched. The exploration of real and imagined technology

created a physical form similar to the flowing surfaces we can create and build today using computer-

modeling software that creates plastic, mouldable forms; perhaps the Smithson's Appliance House was

an interestingly accurate glimpse into the future from 1956. Could we not repeat the experiment on

explore form 25 years from today in the same way?

Diagramming the "Body" in the Appliance House

The perspective of the Smithson's in regards to their Appliance House, or House of the Future,

was an ideology that moved away from the tradition of forming a house or space as a specific response

to the human body. The program of the Appliance House, explored ideas of mass production,

connectivity, took special account of electrical requirements, privacy, little maintenance, be highly

insulated( (Alison & Smithson, 2001). Convenience for the inhabitants and inhabitant comfort appear to

have been the factors that informed the design process behind the Appliance Houses. Diagramming

relationships in space and between spaces relative to the human body is the process that I will use to

diagram the "body" of the Appliance House.

An exploration of movement between spaces in the Appliance House shows a distinct sense of

flow between spaces that flow around the central garden space. The exterior shape of the house is a box

that is defined on the inside by smooth elastic surfaces, and there is a 3:1 ratio between spaces and use

of spaces. There are very few sharp edges within the Appliance House and the shapes are reminiscent of

the sleekness of a sports car or the curves of a woman's body. The diagram of movement between

spaces reinforces the flow and curvilinear forms found within the house, but the sense of convenience

between spaces seems lost.

The idea of the Vitruvian Man is not something that appears to define the spatial relationships

seen in the Appliance House, yet the plan surrounding the central garden area does appear to have a

relationship to the rule of thirds. The Smithson's Appliance House is about human comfort and the ratio

of the rule of thirds is almost universally accepted as being pleasing to the human eye. By creating a one

to one grid and exploring the shapes found in the Appliance House within that grid, an

unexpected relationship is shown between shapes. All Shapes within the grid appear to fit and

respond to specific push/pull points within the grid. The organic shapes that are seen

throughout the house can be clearly connected to a grid pattern.

The shapes found are about caressing and enveloping the human form within the grid,

relationship that reinforces the Smithson's idea of convenience and alludes to the 'glamour' of the

fifties. The shapes created within the bounds of the exterior shell begin to reinforce the idea of

enveloping and the entry doorway and the sunken tub in the bathroom clearly demonstrate a

connection to the idea of the womb; not only in shape but also in the idea of visual confinement.

The final two diagrams explore the relative height and size of spaces found within the house and

the number and size of curvilinear surfaces and spaces observed in both plan and sectional drawings.

The relative height of spaces within the Appliance House, appear to reinforce the idea of confinement.

The largest spaces appear on the edge of the central garden space and progressively seem to adjust as

you pass from space to space, only expanding where required. The majority of spaces appear to be

confining, reinforcing the idea of the building enveloping and caressing the inhabitants, emphasizing the

feeling of comfort.

The exploration of curvature also reinforces the idea of confinement and comfort. The spaces

that are occupied are about enveloping the body. The furniture, tub, show, height of the sink are all

about caressing the human body without unpleasant positioning. The adjustable height of the tables and

the flexibility of spaces are all about human comfort through use.

The "body" in the Appliance House, does not appear to be connected to the traditional

expectations and limitations of an architectural past based on ideal proportions. There is however, a

definitive relationship developed between the human figure and the spaces created in the Appliance

House. The Smithson's recognize a connection based on human comfort that can be seen throughout

the inhabitable space, and the connection between confinement and comfort must relate back to the

idea of the womb, that is not so subtly demonstrated in the shapes found throughout the house.

Technique Diagrams: The Appliance House

For the diagramming techniques of The Appliance House, the case study diagrams will explore

the abstract relationships that can evolve and develop out of diagramming. By specifically exploring the

ideas of, flow, flexibility, and adaptability from the "Body" and "Form" diagrams. This set of diagrams

will begin to unfold the hidden potential within the idea of abstraction. By exploring the, "process of

emergence, the made as being part of the making,"(Spuybroek, p 359), these diagrams attempt to

explore the idea of information potential. What information can be gained though the process of

diagramming? How can the process be abstracted, allowing an adaption to be applied to different

architectural ideas? Will the abstraction allow for the development of new architectural ideas as an

adaption of diagramming techniques?

The diagram below is a process diagram relating to the "Plastic Mould-Ability" diagram from the

"Form" diagrams. This diagram explores the idea of push/pull points that are the starting point of the

diagram exploring plastic mould-ability. The relationship between major control points and an edge

condition produces a diagram with flowing elastic shapes that have the potential to create space. The

major control points become hubs of information that inform the creation of lines and the connection

between hubs.

Expanding on this diagram further, the context of production is explored in the next set of

diagrams, exploring the ideas that Lars Spuybroek mentions in his Nox essay, "The Structure of

Vagueness," about the information that can be extracted from a series of repetitions. This is where the

idea of flexibility within the system emerges through a process of repetition, the rigid lines from the

previous diagram, are repeated five times, and result in a the creation of numerous flexible space

volumes. Relative to the initial diagrams in the "Form" exercise, this diagram illustrates how space can

be created through diagramming before The Appliance House was created. The information flows

created between nodes when repeated, begin to develop inhabitable space within the boundaries of the

system. Which raises the question of how this information can be manipulated further, providing

further information within the system?

The above process of repetition led to further diagrams exploring the idea of solidification. How

can the diagrammatic information processes begin to solidify, creating a further distillation of

information? The next diagram explores the idea of solidification through repetition, which begins to

create density by layering lines of information. By extracting one volume of space from the previous

diagram, an exploration of Vertical amplitude and Diagonal amplitude is explored. The resulting

diagrams can relate directly to the "Relative Height and Space Confinement" diagrams from the "Body"

exercise. The convergence of lines creates a vertical density that can begin to inform the Appliance

House in section and elevation, not just in plan. These diagrammatic processes can be applied to

different sets of information criteria, information that is not specific to The Appliance House, which

allows the diagrams to begin to inform other design processes.

During the diagramming "Form" exercise, the diagram of "Structural Form" in The Appliance

House was directly related to the physical structure observed while researching The Appliance House;

for the purposes of exploration, the next set of diagrams explores the idea of structure from the

opposite observation point. Where the initial "Form" diagrams explored the resultant structure, these

diagrams attempt to explore the idea of structural form as a continuation of the first diagram in this

paper. How can the idea of flexibility, flow, and adaptability evolve from the initial control points

defined in the Plastic Mould-Ability Diagram? By extracting the spaces created from the flexibility of the

plastic mould-ability diagram, an abstraction of the resultant space can be extracted; from the

abstraction, a process of diagramming can begin to inform structure within the context of the "Body"

diagrams. The golden triangle relationship observed in The Appliance House can be applied to the

diagrams below, and be used to extract another layer of information and inform another set of

diagrams.

Read in plan, from a spatial standpoint, the diagrams below begin to inform major structural

elements, similar to the structural observations seen in the" Form" diagrams. They also begin to inform

the "Body" diagrams by implying a sense of size relative to the human body. Read as elevations, the

below diagrams can begin to inform the design of horizontal and vertical spatial relationships.

Unexpectedly, Lars Spuybroek's claim that, "we should opt for a method where elevation and plan are

intertwined and co-evolve into structure,"(Spuybroek, p. 358) starts to emerge from a set of diagrams

that initially started as a diagram in plan.

My initial expectations from this diagramming exercise were the creation of three separate and

individual diagram sets, evolving from three different starting points. Interestingly, as the diagrams

evolved it became apparent that the desired information could be extracted from a manipulation of the

initial diagram in the set. By exploring the initial diagram at a deeper level and manipulating the data

extracted from consecutive diagrams, multiple layers of information are exposed. As Lars Spuybroek

observed in his essay, The Structure of Vagueness, "effects that co-exist in the final result, all the curves,

mergings[sic] and holes are interrelated, nothing can be changed without affecting the arrangement of

the whole," these diagrams begin to refer to the idea of the interconnected information loops. My

initial expectations were influenced by the individual creation of my "Form" and "Body" diagrams and

are useful for understanding The Appliance House, although the relationship between the diagrams is

disconnected. Through the above process of diagramming, an interconnected relationship between my

initial diagrams emerges, and further connections could be observed through a deeper process of

diagramming evolving from the initial data set.

The major observation resulting from diagramming my diagrams is an interconnectedness

between my initial "Form" and "Body" diagrams that is not obvious because of diagramming The

Appliance House after it was created. I have to conclude that if this interconnectedness can be

recognized after the fact, then the interconnectedness can be created from an initial starting point;

evolving from an interconnected repetition of diagrammatic processes, with the potential for the

information extracted to evolve into structuralized and solidified form.

Diagramming Space: The Appliance House

Diagramming space: spaces of the future, defined by logic, society and the never ending march

of time through space. Allison and Peter Smithson's Appliance House is a house that explores the idea

of the future, a future 25 years beyond moment in time that it was created, and whether or not their

predictions are accurate matters little within my exploration of how spaces are created. I can however

utilize the knowledge that gained from diagramming the Appliance House, to begin to produce a set of

diagrams that explore how unrealized spaces can be diagrammed today, exploring the potential for

tomorrow. With that in mind the next series of diagrams relate to the diagrams of the Appliance House,

while also exploring the idea of how space is created and how space is interconnected.

The first diagram views space within a boundary and the interconnected spaces that can be

created within that boundary. Similar to the Appliance house, this diagram embraces the boundary

edge condition within the context of site, forming spaces relative to the boundary.

This diagram, although simple, demonstrates the interconnectedness between spaces and explores the

cause and effect relationships that evolve and inform the creation of space. As Henri Lefebvre observed

in his essay, The Production of Space, thing cannot be, "created independently of each other in space

whether moveable (furniture) or fixed (buildings)" (Lefebvre, 2000). The above diagram illustrates the

interconnectedness between spaces that Lefebvre talks about, but lacks a deeper context to begin to

inform how the interconnectedness between spaces can evolve over time.

Using the above diagram as a starting point, the next diagram further explores the idea of the

interconnectedness between spaces. By exploring the idea of multiple perspectives, next diagram

develops a deeper understanding of the possible effects of individual and social perspectives on the

creation and understanding of space.

The spatial boundary in this case is simply a three dimensional exploded version of the first diagram. In

plan view these two examples would appear to be identical to the first diagram, yet, simply by changing

the perspective of the viewer, the spatial logic informs the creation of completely different spaces. The

patchwork of spaces explored by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari in their essay, "The Smooth and the

Striated," emerges as spatial understanding within the logic of the above diagrams. The

interconnectedness between spaces emerges from the associated changes in perspective, illustrating

the complexity of created space; relative perspectives inform the creation of spaces, as well as, the

observation of created spaces.

The above two diagrams explore the creation of space relative to the context of

interconnectedness, but fail to explore the idea of time within that contextual relationship. The next

two diagrams begin to explore how time can alter and begin to inform the creation of spaces while

acknowledging the interconnectedness between those spaces.

In the above diagram the lines represent different moments in time, and the different line weights

represent the duration of time. The spaces created between the lines illustrate the creation of space

relative to the moments in time, while the spaces created begin to demonstrate the relationship

between smooth and striated space. The shifted lines in the bottom diagram begin to explore the

creation of spaces within spaces during the same moments in time. The spaces created are similar, yet

different, while still being connected to the surrounding space and time relationships.

The final diagram in this series explores the idea of the future and how space might be created

in the future. The interconnectedness between spaces observed by exploring the past can similarly be

explored in the future. The space of the future will be similar to the space of the past, yet the

information age will increase the interconnectedness between spaces, introducing new meta-spaces

within the spatial framework that already exists. The network culture, observed by Kazys Varnelis and

the blurring of the boundaries between reality and fiction will start to inform the creation of space in the

future. Developing a more complex understanding of the interconnected relationships between real

space and meta-space will create adaptive potential within the context of understanding and developing

space.

The space of the future will be fluid and dynamic like the plastic mould-ability observed in the

Appliance House and will integrate real space, with the meta-spaces of network information systems.

The interconnectedness created between these two types of space will develop into a creation of space

that is both familiar and dynamic, allowing the physical spaces of the future to develop emergent

characteristics, creating spaces that are adaptable and multi-dimensional.

Bibliography

Alison, S., & Smithson, P. (2001). The Charged Void: Architecture Alison and Peter Smithson. New York:

The Monacelli Press, Inc. and Peter Smithson.

Bellis, M. (2010). The Invention of the Television. Retrieved 10 04, 2010, from About.com:

http://inventors.about.com/od/tstartinventions/a/Television_Time_4.htm

Colomina, B. (2004). Unbreathed Air 1956. Grey Room , 28-59.

Lefebvre. (2000). The Production of Space. In K. M. Hays, Architectural Theory since 1968 (pp. 178-188).

New York: MIT Press.

Smith, W., & Lewi, H. (2008). The Magic of Machines in the House. The Journal of Architecture , 633-660.

Spuybroek, Lars. Nox. Machining Architecture, (Spuybroek, 2004)