“We were like ants trying to describe a mountain.”

We would like to think that we “know” what goes into making a modern building. But the truth is that no one, not even architects, knows. The O(U)R, Office of (UN)certainty Research, spent three years studying a single, relatively modest modern house located in Seattle by Allied8. The result is “A House Deconstructed,” featuring graphics by Angie Door.

Mark Jarzombek is a professor of history and theory ofarchitecture at MIT.

Vikramaditya Prakash is a professor of architecture at theUniversity of Washington.

Founded in February 2020, O(U)R is a design research practice dedicated to rethinking architecture in terms of the emergentscientific, social and political parameters of the 21st century. O(U)R collaboration started in February 2020. The “House Deconstructed” project grew from the 2021 Venice Biennale exhibition “Many Houses, Many Worlds.”

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Intro / Outro: “The Deconstruction,” by Eels

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Discussed:

-       Permission granted to examine house by its architect, Allied8.

-       The research focused on four vectors:

o   Atomic Consciousness that dates back to the Big Bang andthe earliest supernovas

o   Production Consciousness that involves a vast array of ingredients that are combined to make architectural products

o   Labor Consciousness that spans a wide spectrum of temporal and economic conditions

o   Source Consciousness that is multilayered and global in its reach.

-       “Consciousness” as opposed to “research” or “history”

-       Deliberate obfuscation of sources of environmentally damaging materials

-       Normalization of the “chemicalization” of supply chains in the building industry

-       The entire industrial complex is based on exploitation of the planet – which we need to fundamentally rethink

-       Design for deconstruction – labeling all materials, using machine learning in some cases, in order to consider how a building can be taken apart and reassembled into a project in the future

-       Interview took place on the day the day the NASA Psyche mission was launched, sent in search of metallic bodies

-       Attempting to quantify the inputs and normalize them for comparison proved next to impossible – and beside the point,somewhat, which is simply to establish awareness of the complexity.

-       The objective is to create a generation of future designers who have the “rearview mirrors” that prior generations didn’t, when it came to understanding material sourcing.