Rita Louis

In Gaston Bachelard's Poetics of Space, he proposes that one's dwelling is a place that makes dreaming and imagining possible.

He offers a vertical image of the house which is created by the polarity of the attic and basement which denote, for Bachelard, irrationality and rationality respectively. The attic is a metaphor for clarity of mind. The basement, on the contrary, is the darker, subterranean and irrational entity of the house. Both these sites appear in our dreams and produce varying kinds of them.

My journey from painting to collage is an exploration of this dichotomy of emotional states one experiences within a dwelling. The red and blue lines behave as a compositional device and suggests a source from where various thresholds emerge...

Have we taken the red or the blue pill in our domestic lives?

According to an article by the Natural History Museum, The UK is currently one of the largest producers of household e-waste in the world. When broken or unwanted electronics are dumped in landfill, toxic substances like lead and mercury can leach into soil and water.

Electronics also contain valuable non-renewable resources including gold, silver, copper, platinum, aluminum and cobalt. This means when we dispose of them without recycling, we are throwing away precious materials. Current e-waste recycling solutions are exporting the problem to developing countries.

In a similar vein, Textiles represent a significant proportion of the household waste stream in the UK. An estimated £140 million worth of used clothing goes to landfill in the UK every year.

This is a project where waste is not only seen as a valuable resource but it also acts as a catalyst to drive meaning into our homes..

There was an ambition from the outset to curate the sequence of spaces to reflect the individuality of each Silo. It was important to do this whilst by keeping in mind the industrial nature of the existing site and the textures, colors of the waste being brought in.

Spatially, it is translated into the 3 silos where the Silo for E waste dismantles e-components and reduces it to its basic raw materials. The inhabitant in-house transforms the e-waste into sculptures. The remaining components are sent their separate ways to the other silos to find new meanings and values.

One of the main fundamentals in driving the design is the artist live/work situation with the intention to manifest a cinematic quality to any framed views the building could offer. This is reflected in the spatial organization where there is a hierarchy of spaces moving from the public work spaces on the ground and first floors against the private-semi public areas on the upper floors. The was a need to address the relationships between the silos and their material dependencies.

Unlike a traditional fireplace that’s tucked away, I reimagine it to form a spine along the site.

Waste heat from the underground is extracted via these hoods and brought to ground level through pipes. The structure is supported on framework of metal grate flooring adding to the haptic qualities of the scheme.

At night, the translucency offered by the polycarbonate cladding illuminate the skyline and expose the machinery within.

Here the fireplace is not just symbolic but it is also a generator of power for the silos and a sources for remaking material.

Occupying a cut and cover industrial site above the tube, the street is fronted by the Ghost Façade of Leinster gardens. The façade of the scheme takes its expression from the collage. The intent was to create an element of surprise with an inert façade concealing the activity and intriguing moments within.

The puncture in Corten steel offer vistas to the world outside but also peeks into a collection of archetypal domestic space - the room, the study, the workshop, the basement, the staircase, the attic threaded along the façade. Each one linked to the memory of the archetype of these spaces, expressing a range of lightness to darkness.