When Time Designs Domestic Space. An Exploration of Dysfunctional Habitats

From the 19th century onwards, housing units increasingly embodied functional layouts designed to accommodate the strict daily routines of a normative family, an evolution driven both by the taylorisation of domestic space and by growing hygienic and comfort concerns. Contemporary dwelling layouts continue to follow largely simplified functionalist logics, despite progressive mutations of family structures and the new requirements due to environmental considerations. The article argues that designing housing units with temporal notions other than the daily schedule in mind could produce dwellings that are better able to respond to contemporary needs, while also introducing new conceptual and spatial dimensions to the flow of life within domestic space. The article analyses a selection of dwellings built in the 20th and 21st centuries that consider time in different ways: as seasonality, as in the Latapie House by Lacaton & Vassal; as life–and family–stage evolution, as in Walden 7 by Taller Bofill; and as an overlap of work time and personal time, as in the Amphitheater House by Aristide Antonas. The buildings are analysed in terms of plan distribution, articulation of volumes, and materiality to understand how their design and construction embody specific notions of time that differ from conventional daily patterns. Each case study is compared with a vernacular housing type that interprets the same notion of time. Eventually, each of the three examples demonstrate an ability to accommodate evolving uses and ways of living, while paving the way for a substantial reconsideration of the organisation of contemporary housing units.