House without Doorstops (Thesis Prelude)
Spring 2021 MArch Thesis Studio
Advisors: Lisa Iwamoto, Andrew Atwood

These drawings introduced my thesis on doors and their potential as a preeminent generator of spatial conditions. Framed simply as a generic partitional element with a specific dimension and construction, the project uses a door to speculate around boundaries, ownership, and what it means to dwell today.

For this exercise, we look at a house with four equally sized rooms. Here, the protective quality (function) of a doorstop is no longer present. As a result, varying degrees of damage are inflicted upon adjacent surfaces through the carelessness of a door’s users. Instead of patching the drywall and applying a fresh coat of paint, the residents decide to surgically carve new, clean cut surfaces behind the wreckage, a cycle that repeats with every unwarranted slam of the door. Every carve eventually gives way to larger imprints, displaying a relationship and dialogue between mobile and static elements.