To the Lighthouse

Part I: design research

My design research has centred on the making of artifacts. This followed a particular approach I developed over my master's degree but finds added validity in Elaine Scarry’s book, The Body In Pain. There, Scarry describes the world-destroying dynamic inherent to pain. And how in pain-inducing circumstances, hurt is often unable to be articulated. Scarry talks about the creation of material artifacts as one way to give voice to what cannot be said. And that artifacts themselves can be found as a means of world-making – much like architecture.

I have researched extensively on the nature of domestic violence in Aotearoa with particular reference to first-hand accounts from family violence survivors, taken from the book See What You Made Me Do by Jess Hill and a sixteen-part New Zealand documentary series on domestic violence, Breaking Silence.

Rtifact drawing — Initial drawings of the four original artifacts.

My four original artifacts explore issues of family violence operating as an open secret (the Watch Tower), how survivors lose their identities (the Void), the layering of physical and psychological abuse over time (In the Bellows), and the shame inherent in family violence (the Pirouette Silhouette).

Leo BR02468 copy — Some of the artifacts and their counter artifacts (not to scale). From left to right In the Bellows, Pirouette Silhouette, Scrap Yard, In Tension.

To counter the heaviness of the original artifacts I generated what I have termed counter artifacts. These four counter artifacts represent the relief upon leaving a violent home (Scrap Yard), the resilience needed to rebuild one’s life (the House that Burnt Up), the difficulty in leaving but the freedom this brings (in tension), and the breaking free from family violence (Under Renovation).

My speculative approach to this research and the artifacts is grounded in a landscape taken from the film set of Dogville. The houses are stripped to their bear outlines revealing what is happening behind closed doors. This “Suburban Street” refers to a street I once lived on; the floor plans also reference houses I have lived in. A synthesis of fiction and truth.

Map modos — The street landscape later converted to a table top.

Table top — The street landscape and its artifacts and counter artifacts.

Transition

I felt a need to see past the heaviness of this all and I was drawn to alternative artifacts that were expressive of softness and care.

I did this through the making of quilts. To me, quilts represented a counter artifact to family violence – a caring and loving home.

As I was making these quilts, I was reading Alias Grace, a Margaret Atwood novel and learned how a yellow square in a quilt symbolised a welcoming light in one’s window. My quilts and their yellow squares are a nod to this welcoming light. They suggest a room of light amidst a sea of darkness. A lighthouse.

And it was this suggestion of a lighthouse that formed the basis of my architectural response.

Part 2: An architectural response

My lighthouses are again grounded in world making and the creation of artifacts as a response to pain.

I chose to base my world making in everyday care and beauty. Everyday care because one way in which nurses respond to pain, is by practicing everyday acts of care. Everyday things and routines.

And beauty because Scarry sees this as sitting opposite to pain. Beauty helps in the repairing of injuries and in dealing with injustices. Upon encountering a beautiful object, we undergo an unselfing. It lifts us up fleetingly and returns us back down to earth altered for the better.

The location of these urban lighthouses is on the street. If the house is unsafe because of violence, then the street could be seen is safer. The street is also a traditional site of protest. And as we move towards decarbonising our streets, it is also a site for experimentation and world building, as is the norm in non-western countries.

Like the crossroads we find ourselves at with domestic violence, the speculative street in front of you is also a crossroads. This street is based on the memory of 4 streets I’ve lived on. It’s an amalgam I’ve used to ground these experimental lighthouses. This response addresses my lived experience but other streets and other neighbourhoods would formulate their own lighthouses of care according to their experience.

Fgfd — Left: the speculative street and its four lighthouses (1:50). Right: looking across the table of artifacts to the street + projected imagery behind. Images by Daniel Ho.

Each lighthouse embodies an act of everyday care personal to me. And the representation of these spaces in the images is also intentionally personal. This is because when thinking about everyday care, I was reminded of essayist Joan Didion, who wrote about what she saw in the world - she wrote about what she knew. These acts of care and images are my family engaging in care is what I know everyday care as and offered me the ability to speculate on these spaces.

The Laundry speaks to washing, the Bus Stop to observing, the Playroom to play and the Caretaker's Cottage to rest.

The spatial qualities and forms of the four lighthouses are directly linked with my earlier artifacts and quilts. They are suggested as an overlay of hope. Not a utopia.