Elena Stefanos

Variations of Incomplete Grids

When designing social housing that is affordable, the sense of a ‘home’ identity is often lost through ‘one size fits all’ solutions. What if we challenged the conventions of living to create uniqueness and identity whilst maintaining affordable systems?

Sol LeWitt’s “incomplete open cubes” is a sequence of 122 ways to ‘not complete a cube’. Whilst each iteration follows the dimensionality of the cube, they are not a cube and hence do not appear as one. When applying this line of thinking to a modular system of social housing, each unit maintains a prefabrication and modularity as fitting into a systematic grid structure. However, the interior is differentiated from the next by its incompletion or its deviation from the grid – allowing it to maintain its uniqueness and unconventionality. Thus, each unit can be built from a ‘kit of parts’ allowing for a fast and cost-effective assembly – negating the need for heavy machinery or labour. The unit typologies equally challenge privacy conditions of typical unit living – with shared spaces such as kitchen, dining facilities and communal workspaces, merging with living spaces.