The Life and Death of Residential Room Types: A Study of Swedish Building Plans, 1750–2010

New article out in Architectural Histories

Abstract: While the study of building types is a well-known and relatively active research field, the topic of room types is less explored. This article takes a broad approach to spatial categorization, enabling the examination of different types of spaces over longer periods. How do different room types evolve and die? How do the different residential room types relate to each other? Do they act alone or do they follow each other over time? The article looks at the particular evolution and development of Swedish residential room types and is based on the study of plans of 2,340 Swedish buildings from about 1750 to 2010. Six themes emerged from this study: thresholds of birth and extinction, abruptive change, the relation between absent and present room types, contagious types, different temporal scales and the stabilization of prototypical sets.

Children’s play kitchen, or lekkök (Byggmästaren 1951: 451).

Seminar in Trento

Three presents: On the multi-temporality of territorial production and the gift from John Soane

By Andrea Mubi Brighenti and Mattias Kärrholm

Published in Time & Society

 Abstract

Territoriality has primarily been seen as a spatial rather than temporal phenomenon. In this paper, we want to investigate how time functions in territorialising processes. In particular, we are attracted by the multi-temporality that is copresent in each process of territorialisation (i.e. processes in which time and space are used as means of measure, control and expression). The article is divided into two main parts. In the first part, we draw inspiration from Gilles Deleuze’s book Logic of Sense, as well as from authors such as Simmel, Whitehead, Benjamin and Jesi, in order to articulate three different types of the present (Aion, Kronos and Chronos). In the second part, we move to a short case study of the collector John Soane and the establishment of his house-museum. The case is used to exemplify how these three presents can be used to discuss temporal aspects of territorialisation in general, and the production of a specific sort of territory – the house-museum as a new building type in particular.

Keywords: Territorial production, temporality of the present, multiple temporalities, Aion, Kronos, Chronos, collectionism, house-museum.

Diagram of the three presents

John Soane's house: Looking up at the Dome from the Sepulchral Chamber (photo by courtesy of Jesper Magnusson).

John Soane's house: The Breakfast Room in No. 13 Lincoln’s Inn Field. A series or mirrors and openings allow glimpses from adjacent rooms and museum spaces (photo by courtesy of Jesper Magnusson).

In Search of Building Types

In search of building types: On visitor centers, thresholds and the territorialisation of entrances

Now (2016-12-29) published in Journal of Space Syntax

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to contribute to an actantial approach to building type studies through a study of the visitor centre and its role in contemporary spatial production. The article takes its empirical departure in the (from a Swedish perspective) intense urbanization of the Scania region, in the southern part of Sweden. Looking at building types in terms of actants implies that different sets of buildings can be abstracted in different ways (and not just in terms of form or function) depending on the effect they have in a certain situation. The proliferation of visitor centers in Scania is by no means an innocent development, these centers have a part to play in the urbanization process of the region. In this article I discuss this role as a kind threshold actant or type, which I further divide into four different subcategories in order to show connections with other sorts of spaces in the urban landscape. The discussion is then used both to highlight the role of visitor centers in recent processes of urbanization, and to argue for a more open-ended, relational and pragmatic approach to building types studies, with a focus on the role that building types play in society and everyday life.

Keywords: building types, visitor centers, thresholds, material semiotics, territoriality

Domkyrkoforum, Lund (photo: M. K.)