Roomness

Abstract

Rooms are essential to our understanding of architecture. Yet over the past century there has been a dramatic dissolution of rooms in residential apartments in favour of open-plan spaces. This shift has ignored the inherent discomfort of the open-plan.

This design-led research examines the room, from an urban scale to individual architectural elements, as discussed in Edith Wharton’s The Decoration of Houses (1897). It introduces the concept of ‘good bones’ as a means to design functional, comfortable and harmonious rooms. A multi-unit context is presented with the design methods of three New York apartment architects practising in the 1920s; James Carpenter, Rosario Candela and Emery Roth.

The research proposes medium-density housing in Brooklyn, Wellington, designed as a series of rooms. Such a solution would address the lack of acoustic and visual privacy but also the less understood difficulty that occurs when decorating open-plan spaces. Decorating being an important cultural activity.