Collectively: Extending the Housemuseum by Investigating its Capacity to Contain Collections at Different Scales

Abstract

An international trend for museums to focus on people’s experience and education, over the accrual and care of collections, calls for an alternative to the existing model. The housemuseum links domestic and institutional ideologies, offering the social context of private collections whilst adhering to museological standards. This unique characteristic is informed by the association between the housemuseum and the contents it contains. As a recently defined typology, the housemuseum necessitates further spatial investigation. This research proposition extends the housemuseum by investigating its capacity to contain collections at different scales.

To explore this research proposition, this thesis is split up into two parts. The first part is initiated by a critical literature review examining the definition of the housemuseum typology, the significance of the collection museum and the spatial precedent of the curiosity cabinet, followed by small and large-scale case study analysis. At the small scale, the concept of the curiosity cabinet establishes architectural tools involving folding, revealing, and layering. These inform the development of architectural details to present, protect and conserve collections within a domestic context. An analysis of the form, plan and material attributes of large-scale case studies, the Heide II and The Lyon Housemuseum, establish contrasting approaches for developing The Cuba Collective. Using a narrative design method, the domestic programme briefs are developed for four idiosyncratic characters with specific collections. These are hybridised with the New Zealand Film Archive as the featured museological programme. Following this, a site analysis examines the Cuba Street location.

The second part considers the outcomes of this literary, precedent, programme and site analysis and applies them to an iterative design process. Using sketches, analogue and digital modelling, plan matrices and material palettes, this process develops the form, plan and material attributes of a housemuseum at different scales, for the presentation, protection and conservation of collections.

In conclusion, at a large scale, the hybrid nature of the housemuseum typology encourages the juxtaposition of different programmes and volumes, creating a collection of architectures. At the small scale, specific detail drawings concerned with the presentation, protection and conservation of character’s collections facilitate the unique housemuseum characteristic of containing collections in their specific social and cultural context. By investigating the housemuseums capacity to contain collections at different scales, this thesis proposition contributes to the growing architectural research of the housemuseum typology as an alternative to the current museological model.