Xerohouse

“In a landscape where nothing officially exists, absolutely anything becomes thinkable, and may consequently happen …” - Reyner Banham, Scenes in America Deserta

Xerohouse is a prototype for desert living; calibrated, tuned and responsive to its desert habitat. It is an adaptable, mutable and variable desert ecology. Contrary to current trends in desert suburban development, Xerohouse is a porous, permeable and evolving habitat in synchronicity with its surroundings – hyper situated, indigenous and local. Xerohouse responds to the DNA of the desert: wind direction, solar orientation, temperature, sand. Xerohouse attempts to reconcile two antithetical and disparate conditions that define modern desert living: extreme climate and extreme sprawl. How can the intense heat, aridity, and blistering sunshine of the desert be reconciled with the vast expanses of single-family homes cooled by central air, surrounded by golf courses, and bordered by artificial lakes? Can the synthetic recombination of these extreme conditions spawn productive new hybrids of desert living machines, landscapes and ecologies?

Location: Phoenix, AZ.
Design: Future Cities Lab - Jason Kelly Johnson & Nataly Gattegno
Project Team: Joy Wang.
Support: University of Michigan, the Graham Foundation, MIGA Motors Berkley, CA.

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