‘Love Without Boundary’ is a visionary ‘Home’ for families living’ which accommodates more complex forms of household living together. It is an experimental terrain for an alternative way of living and love — a large contemporary home for 50 families, families from a wide spectrum of relationships. The surface provides ambiguity and offers inhabitants to adapt or re-appropriate their spaces according to their uses and intentions. Orientation, proximity and clustering of form define the geometry of the terrain, that accommodates emerging forms of family structures living together.
The term ‘nuclear family’ is commonly used and described American family who conforms to the ideals of a family unit. This stereotype of family structure leads to conventional domestic typology as an American suburban house. The stereotypical image of a house (and home) has been repeatedly reproduced to our society; whilst imposing a standardised image of a perfect family that has never existed. On the opposite end of the spectrum, a polyamorous relationship is a niche social phenomenon in the United States. Particularly, Portland, Oregon is seen as the capital of ethical non-monogamy, the practice of openly having multiple relationships that develop beyond sex. The unfamiliar form of love compared to conventional relationships seems to influence on a way of arranging relationships and family structure. Currently, conventional domestic typology is not appropriate to new models of social relationships and family structure, which become more complex and fluid. Collections of co-living families are sharing values in order to have a better quality of life. The new values are both collective living and commune, which negotiates new forms of sharing.
‘Love Without Boundary’ is a visionary ‘Home’ for American living’ which accommodates more complex forms of household living together. It is an experimental terrain for an alternative way of living and love — a large contemporary home for 50 families, families from a wide spectrum of relationships. The surface provides ambiguity and offers inhabitants to adapt or re-appropriate their spaces according to their uses and intentions. The house, one large single storey as a landscape, is a fluid space of 20,000 sq. m. in a 150m by 150m urban block between the downtown and suburb of Portland. The project removes spatial hierarchy and walls of the American suburban house and inverts its organisation by putting a porch in the middle for socialising and leading inhabitants to their clusters. The orientation, proximity and clustering are the spatial organisation principles of the project. This defines the form of the surface and creates different spatial qualities for different activities. It is a seamless space for community for living, sharing, negotiating, and parenting.
The Board:
