CAMERA HOME
a Manhattan penthouse

date: 1997

The house presents a link between the occupant and the city at the scale of a person, defined not by the distance of the horizon or a city block but by the distance of the wall within the intimate space of the house and within arm's reach.

It is a Manhattan penthouse consisting of an open space of activity bounded on one side by a screened window. The floor surface of this area of activity is irregular, consisting of a series of rectangular panels similar in colour but differing in height and material: precast concrete textured with brush, textile, wood and wax, with woven mats under the feet at the dining area and plush surface on the bed. The window structure accommodates the possessions of the occupant in a prismatic layer of glass shelves. Suspended between the glass of the inside surface of this storage wall are rectangular sheets of wood veneer ranging in thickness from 0.08mm to 1mm so as to allow various degrees of translucency, and at the thinner ranges, transparency. This wall, and the nearly transparent sections within it, allow only specific parts of the view to be seen clearly, thereby focussing the attention of the viewer standing at a particular place on a single key object within that view. The view is to the north, the daylight diffusing through the translucent shell of the structure. At night, lamps illuminate the interior through this screen.

The windows are for looking at, not through, as their surface compresses the distant cityscape object, the personal artifact, and the shadow and graini of wood, with the textures and movement of a particular activity. Although the space is open and singular it is far from homogeneous, each localised moment being comprised of a specific cityscape object (view), personal artifacts (view, use and touch), activity, and texture (touch).