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Timeline project
Research on habitats and the inhabitable object.
Study 2015.
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Organising time and enjoying time is paramount today. The idea of paying attention to time stems from the fact that today time, more than space, shapes our life.
The Timeline project focuses on programming the functional times of habitats, and not the spaces. By taking a given spatial framework as reference, (50 m2 living space), the project circumvents questions of capacity dimension instead qualifying habitats through everyday time scenarios.
Placing the functional environment of habitats into living sequences on a timeline enables the density of certain functions or moments of the day to be increased or extended.
Thus, the ergonomics take on a completely different dimension and motivation becoming temporal.
The physical dimensions of the body are no longer a priority. The physiological and psychological dimensions of time define usable ergonomic spaces. For example, rest areas are important in habitats because a great deal of time is spent there, so the volume of air is adapted to the physiological supply required by the body during the night.
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If the increasing urbanisation of the territory extends beyond cities, urban densification could be defined as the synchronised or juxtaposed multiplication of functional time.
The same goes for within a habitat. Two individuals share the same time density when moments of their daily lives are simultaneous. Quite the reverse, the densities are different, when these two individuals carry out parallel activities within the same habitat.
Time density within a certain space increases with the number of people. If the quantity of activities increases within the habitat, and without including potential communication and connections with the exterior, time becomes much denser for its inhabitants. Simultaneous use intensifies and accelerates exchanges between people. The time lived is more intense.
In more detail, on an emotional level, time density, and the opposite, time dilation, may be experienced at the same chronometric time depending on whether the action or thought generated is more or less intense or interesting. Time becomes emotional. At this point the time is no longer programmed, but experienced.
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If the ‘Timeline’ media is a modern, linear and flowing figure, favourable to acceleration and speed, and at the same time, the incidental, it is reassuring to discern new less definitive and more interactive possibilities for this Timeline, enabling a reconfiguration or modulation of the system to be envisaged.
The surge in video making and its importance in everyone’s daily time allows an assumption to be made that the very structures of this medium can serve as a filter to reclassify life itself, as though video streaming had become the very principle of the economy (organisation) of our life. Playing, stopping, coming back, accelerating, and in particular, having access to a fragment of time beyond a definite spatial device.
We should remember that we are in control of, directors, or even producers of our homes.
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The project is fuelled by data collection to programme the forms and sequences of the inhabitable object: the Timeline. Vocabulary similar to habitat and timeline is used to qualify this new habitat: Timeline (habitat) / User rhythms / Interpolation of uses and ergonomics / Assembly and living sequences/Synchronisation of uses /Compositing materials/Rate of Energy (production and consumption).
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Stage 1: Data.
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Data/User rhythms.
Data research on uses and habitats, their exploitation and organisation in the form of data-visualisation, enables a new interpretative model of daily practices to be implemented, based on the notion of time density.
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Data/Rate of Energy.
The data concerns the consumption, as well as the production of energy. The ability of inhabitants to produce their own energy and share it through a distributed network is represented. The objective is to balance energy rates.
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Stage 2: Programme
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Programme / Expandable modules /Interpolated time.
The furniture modules are basic living units for a habitat. They can be extended or duplicated according to period of use. They can be combined, thus interpolating different moments in life.
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Programme/Assembly and lifestyle sequences /Compound time.
Lifestyle sequences are assembled according to the lifestyles of user(s), their daily rhythms, affinities, favoured activities and external activities…
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Programme/Assembly and lifestyle sequences/Time typologies.
Time typologies (linear, cyclical, fragmented…), determine diverse habitat organisation; time typologies become quasi-philosophical living and inhabiting options.
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Programme/Vicinity/Synchronised time.
Relationships between several habitats can be developed and organised depending on synchronised time: link moments from the inhabitants’ lives by harmonising their functional and physiological rhythms, their lifestyle habits, up to offering collaborative or pooled organisation of their time, (for work for example).
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Programme/Distributed networks/Energy time.
‘Distributing energy’ enables habitats to produce their energy from the sun, wind and rain. Any excess can be distributed throughout the network or used to counter a local energy deficit.
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Programme/ Privacy/Concealed time.
The habitat should be able to respond to the external environment when open or closed. Flexible or sliding curtains, on each module, allow certain moments or functions of the habitat to be screened.
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Programme/Envelope/Climate.
The living modules can be completed by an envelope structure filtering the external climate and insulating the internal climate as necessary. Technical walls fill the structure according to requirements and the spatial and geographical location of the modules; (integration within an existing architecture that will partly protect them, or in full urban or natural landscape).
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Programme/Textures/Workable time.
The composite modules comprise several types of fixed or mobile materials, providing the body with different textures. They are designed from more or less dense materials. The structural materials have a high density, while the materials close to the body are softer, more supple, permeable and light. The dynamic and workable elements are colourful. The networks are carried within fixed structures and elements. Sensors are integrated in dynamic and tactile elements. The modules can function autonomously or be connected together, making a networked object from one module or from the entire habitat.
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Stage 3: Manufacture
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Manufacture /Adapted economy.
The project is designed to be adaptable to different manufacturing processes, materials and budgets. The simple modules, from the TIMELINE habitat programme, enable a producer or manufacturer to simply appropriate the plans, and, interpret and suggest a production strategy; from a layout of half-finished industrial components, to made-to measure cabinet making selecting refined or very technical materials. One interesting technological avenue is 3D printing by fused deposition modelling for important pieces like the furniture. The material used is injected in the form of molten granules from recycled materials like waste wood and plastic bottles. Fused deposition modelling through gravity, would enable the main volumes to be produced by successive stacking. The repetition of the deposition stopping when the extension of the function reaches its size via calculated machine time.
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