HOUSE-CHAIR

Architects have historically used the chair as a design object to explore compositional and construction ideas without the pressures of building at the architectural scale and speed. HOUSE-CHAIR brought the history of chair design into the Build a Chair = Reframe a House Workshop to teach basic American home framing and finishing skills to Detroiters fixing up their DLBA homes through its assembly. HOUSE-CHAIR, an agglomeration of Detroit home fragments, teaches how to frame and finish the floor, walls and roof of a home through its construction while formally representing the construction systems of an entire home. During the workshop, we all gathered around the building of the chair. It felt like barn-raising: the workshop assembled the Detroit community around the act of rebuilding together. Read more about Detroit Reuse Collective, the Build a Chair = Reframe a House Workshop and Cyrus Peñarroyo’s HOUSE-WORLDS.