The global city as a domestic space.

The point of contact between the domestic space and the city summarizes in itself equivocal conditions. Is there a real limit between home and city? The aim of the thesis is to intercept this promiscuity and design new forms of individual living. What is left of the space of intimacy? Is it possible to reinterpret the way of inhabiting a global city?

The project explores, with two scenarios, the promiscuous space of living. Man is already unconsciously naked in front of the city: the intimate distance between his body and the urban is dissolved. The boundaries of the domestic environment are denied and the space of the house is exploded outside - or the space of the city imploded inside. The body (the most intimate nudity of the individual) is stripped of its masks and the house (the private dimension of the individual) sees its filters gradually compromised. A parallelism applicable to this condition concerns the use of the Japanese public bath. In Japan, the term “hadaka no tsukiai” (naked relationship) used within this type of environment, suggests a kind of relationship in which both sides have nothing to hide from one another, being in a comfort zone even if they are naked together. By transposing this concept to dwelling, the house can dissolve itself in the city or the city permeate every dimension of the house. Living transforms its morphological conformation and its way of being lived, not only on the system of a single living unit but bringing its dimension to the urban block. The proposal ignores the lot limits transcending them. The density of housing in the city has increased considerably, creating an environment in which the individual radically redesigns the space of his house, with a better quality of living overcoming the urban hypertrophy. For Shitaya-ku, the ground floor, made up of the most private rooms of a house (related to body care), becomes at the same time the urban distribution inside the blocks; for Mukodai-cho, the domestic rooms are connected as needed, going beyond the distinction between individual housing units and eliminating thresholds and divisions. Home and city are merged together, with a radical redesign of the space of intimacy. The choice to operate on two different fabrics allowed to widen the field of vision and to deepen the theme. Regardless of the formal characters of the project, the aim is to go beyond constrictive definitions a go far, instead, into a world of more critical reflections.