Gambit

House as Thesis

This is a design project done individually that plays out the interests developed over the summer in a distilled piece of design work. In chess, an opening gambit is the first move in which the player makes a sacrifice, typically a pawn, for the sake of a compensating advantage later in the game. The first project you arrive with in September will be your opening gambit, prompting an initial stance and design probe into the territory. A sacrificial project, a way in to the work. This move can also be decisive, one that helps to set the tempo and outcome for the year. Take this effort seriously, recognizing that its best attributes and questions may become critical, but recognizing that the more ambitious effort, where flawed, will only yield deeper fruit – and where work runs awry, it will find new traction in the seminar and studio discussions.

The House as Thesis is simultaneously open to the definition of the term ʻhouseʼ, yet confounded by literal scale of a house (approx range 30sf-3000sf). The thesis as a house. A house to contain the thesis.