SITE

SITE, The Highrise of Homes, Traveling Exhibition, 1981 to 2005 :

"This experimental high-rise housing proposal is composed of fifteen to twenty stories to be located in a densely populated urban center. It is intended for mixed income residents and includes shopping, parking and residential facilities. The configuration of the structure is a steel and concrete matrix that supports a vertical community of private houses, clustered into distinct village-like communities on each floor. Every level is a flexible platform that can be purchased as separate real estate parcels. A central elevator and mechanical core provide services to the individual houses, gardens, and interior streets. The philosophical motivation behind this concept is a critique of the Twentieth Century tradition of homogenized and faceless multi-story buildings, which eliminate the possibility for urban dwellers to demonstrate any evidence of their presence in the cityscape. As an alternative, the High-rise of Homes offers residents a unique opportunity to achieve an individual statement of identity. The purpose is to shift the premises for aesthetic evaluation in high-rise buildings away from orthodox design continuity, in favor of the artistic merits of collage architecture, based on indeterminacy, idiosyncrasy and cultural diversity."