Small Houses: Sydney/Japan. Analytical tools for evaluating compact housing. Achieving amenity in compact housing via a study of inhabitation and context. Case study: five small housing projects under 80m2 by Kazuyo Sejima Ryue Nishizawa.

摘要

This thesis concerns a collection of compact housing projects by Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa (knowncollectively as SANAA). SANAA has an established place within the architectural discipline for their ingenuity in thedesign of exceptional and efficient urban dwellings which challenge conventional notions of living. This thesis willdemonstrate this via the detailed graphic analysis of five housing projects. The selected projects: Gifu KitagataApartment Building, Small House, House in a Plum Grove, Funabashi Apartment Building and Moriyama House, aredistinguished by offering opportunities for substantial living amenity achieved through innovative design. The analysis of these models (recognised for excellence and innovation), is used to develop new analytical tools for evaluating howamenity is achieved in compact housing, with potential applications for Sydney. Two distinct aspects of SANAA’s workare interrogated: inhabitation (use) and context. In order to investigate these, the thesis reviews and extends thegraphic techniques of Learning from Las Vegas (1972), Made in Tokyo (2001) and the photographic techniques ofCalifornian artist Edward Ruscha. Extending the graphic techniques that these ways of thinking have made available,the thesis interrogates richness in the houses which is not evident via other modes of representation. Specifically, thethesis uses the intersection of these modes of representation, generating a framework for the analysis of the selectedworks. The analysis takes the form of drawings, models and photographs. Each technique is rigorously tested for whatit can reveal in architecture now. In examining and articulating the complexities of inhabitation and simultaneouslyscrutinising each buildings relationship to the surrounding conditions, the method of analysis corresponds to thecharacteristics and methods of SANAA’s architecture.The contribution of this thesis to research arises primarily from its interrogation of the complexity in SANAA’s work,typically omitted by conventional modes of representation. It is suggested that via a detailed graphic analyses ofpatterns of inhabitation and responses to specific contextual conditions, a framework can be identified that is valuableboth for providing analytical tools for evaluating compact housing and for uncovering and explicating some undescribedaspects of SANAA’s work.