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The Journalof ArchitectureVolume 7Winter 2002
What about my things?‘The house of things’
Jason Grif� ths Department of Architecture, University of
Westminster, London, UK
© 2002 The Journal of Architecture 1360–2365 DOI: 10.1080/1360236032000040893
This is a project that began with a cube constructed
from all my ‘things’ (Figs 1 and 2).
The cube was created from
a desire to see the volume of my belongingsas a pure form
a desire to make something that avoided the
process of production
a desire to make something exclusively from
what I already hada desire to return this form to architectural
dimensions.
This cube was used as the basis of the proposal
for the ‘The House for Mies van der Rohe’ compe-tition run by the Shinkenchiku organisation. The
project set out to re-evaluate the relationship
between modernism and the mass-produced object
in the light of contemporary cycles of produc-
tion and consumption. As it developed it began toexplore the consequences of the increasing pres-
ence of ‘products’ in architecture. ‘The house of
things’ (HOT) is intended to confront the process by
which houses consume. It proposes a positive alter-
native to the belief that new architecture can bereduced to an arrangement of new products in
space.
The incidental movement of everyday objects
creates their own hierarchy and plastic space. Most
interiors are extremely dynamic, �owing environ-ments in their own right and usually at odds with
architects’ desires. This dynamic differs greatly from
architectural ‘dynamic’. Natural mess is in con�ict
with Miesian planar, �owing composition where
the object is either set within the space or hidden
within the walls according to its value.In the �rst stages HOT begins by gathering all
artefacts into a simple volume and examines the
spatial consequences created by their use. Modern-
ist ‘dynamic space’ is replaced by a dynamic, and
determined by systems of collection. All objectsbuild! Objects that would have been internalised
now de�ne the periphery of the house.
This phase of Miesian arrangement is inverted –
mess is exposed and pure white perfection is inter-
nalised. The cube is used to make this act appeardeliberate. The decorative qualities of everyday
objects are systematised into architectural language.
They become extremely public as does the act of
using them. Private living functions are, by con-
trast, wholly internalised as if the occupier is pullingtheir possessions around them for protection.
The project makes the objects and the architec-
ture inextricably linked. The house form can only
exist with the objects. The form of this building
proposes a question to contemporary architecturethat acts as a vessel through which ‘things’ pass
being either stored or displayed. Rarely does archi-
tecture welcome some lasting trace of what passes
through it. Rarely do buildings not make a distinc-
tion between, say, a pair of rubber gloves and aLockheed Chez lounge. Objects and possessions
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Figure 1.
Jason Grif�ths ‘my
things’ 1.
376
What about my things?Jason Grif�ths
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Figure 2.
Jason Grif�ths ‘my
things’ 2.
377
The Journalof ArchitectureVolume 7Winter 2002
repeatedly become the client–architect border
con�ict over ultimate de�nition of habitable spaces.
‘Avoid eccentricities’HOT asks what happens when the building is madeof ordinary objects (Fig. 3). What happens when
the physical nature of the object becomes unavoid-
able? What happens when the building is perma-
nently imbued with the qualities of the object in a
decorative and spatial way (Fig. 4)?
‘Wherever I go so does me go’The second phase of this project looked for ways
to make the proposal more buildable. It sought out
a system that would allow architects and clients to
incorporate the old house into the new house.
People tend to bring their old houses with them
when they move. New places seem to have very
similar patterns of accumulation to the old ones. At
this stage all the client’s possessions are pho-tographed in advance and projected onto the new
building. Walls are screen printed with these images
and juxtaposed against their corresponding func-
tional areas. All household artifacts are camou-
�aged against this background (Fig. 5).The presence of the immediate past is embraced
by the architecture. The architecture is representa-
tional and decorative in a manner that raises the
language of the every-day object explicitly. It refers
to the normality without being solely practical.
The Appliance HousesIn part this proposal is generated from observations
made of the Smithsons’ Appliance House series in
the late 1950s. These houses were carried out dur-ing a stream of post-war optimism and speculation
on the role of consumer goods in architecture.
Private houses that sought a union with the con-
sumerist boom. There could never have been, at this
period, such a feeling as exists today. A feeling thatsuggested there might be something questionable
about such an alliance. Most of the theorising at
this time appears to be directed at how architecture
should respond to mass production. It signi�ed a
change in thinking, from the idea of ‘the room’ as
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Figure 3. What
happens when the
building is made of
ordinary objects?
Figure 4. What
happens when the
building is perma-
nently imbued with
the qualities of the
object?
378
What about my things?Jason Grif�ths
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Figure 5. All the
client’s possessions
are photographed in
advance and
projected onto the
new building.
379
The Journalof ArchitectureVolume 7Winter 2002
a �xed spatial unit of predetermined function to the
distribution of ‘appliance cubicles’ throughout the
house. Nothing obscures the belief in the bene�t of
focusing the development of the house aroundmass production apart from a lament that houses
could not be larger products. Some hope that they
might confront similar problems of renewal as are
faced by the car industry. The Appliance House set
the tone for decades of speculation about the closealliance between mass production and the house.
Although the Smithsons quickly moved away from
these interests and left them to others to develop,
their houses appear to set the terms upon which later
‘advanced houses’ were designed, signalling thehegemony of high tech in the UK. An architecture
that has lead to catalogue speci�cation (architectura l
shopping) as a surrogate form of creativity.
As an alternative the third phase for HOT makes
the presence of ‘things’ more permanent (Fig. 6). Asbefore the initial exchanges with the client centre
around a photographic survey of their things. The
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Figure 6. ‘The
house of things.’
Figure 7. HOT
concrete frame.
What happens when
a building retains the
traces of a client’s
‘things’?
What happens when
only your old ‘things’
�t in the storage
spaces?
What happens when
a building interrupts
consumption?
What happens when
construction explicitly
avoids the interest of
production?
What happens when
you expose ordinary
mess?
380
What about my things?Jason Grif�ths
survey is then projected onto an in situ concrete
pitched roof form. The projection is carried by means
of a line drawing to cut polystyrene removable
shapes embedded within the formwork. Fittings andinterior �nishes are designed around this base in
tightly packed enclosable space. Scaled up shapes
are punched through the roof to form roo�ights and
the less accessible spaces on the gables become dec-
orative windows. The form is surrounded with astructural glass envelope that constitutes spatial
counter-point to the enclosed concrete form. These
perforated walls make consumption deliberately
awkward. Only old ‘things’ �t. The house stagnates
the �ow of objects or asks the inhabitant to interpret
the perforations in new ways. The whole proposal isthen set within a suburban context against a back-
drop of extreme domestic consumption.
This is a monolithic architectural expression that
is intentionally inert. Its forms, spaces and decora-
tion are the result of rephrased questions on archi-tecture’s relationship with contemporary production
(Figs 7 and 8).
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Figure 8. This is a
monolithic expression
that is intentionally
inert.
381
The Journalof ArchitectureVolume 7Winter 2002
