Symbiotic Behaviors – A new Living together

An approach to Quarantine

Quarantine, as all of us have experienced, generates feelings of anxiety, boredom and even loneliness, even if accompanied. However, as opposite to isolation, we believe in transforming it into Connection.

 

Symbiosis: interaction between two different organisms living in close physical association, typically to the advantage of both.

Comes from the Greek term Sumbios, companion, which evolved to the term sumbiosis: Living together.

Like many examples in nature, these principles can be transported to architecture. Why do we consider it  as an useful tool to fight quarantine effects?

As an example, we can use Xavier de Maistre experience during his 42 day long lock down in his house due to an illegal duel: to cope with quarantine and isolation, he created small stories, emotional connections and links with every part of the space he was inhabiting. By these stories, he generated his own small, and yet big, world inside his domestic cage, with its corresponding feeling of belonging.

Symbiosis principles will let us think of the architecture and the user as a single being, not as separate objects. The space and the user become one.

So this is the goal: to generate a BIG WORLD inside a SMALL CABIN, a living organism in which we will have to understand all the interconnections and every single part for it to be so.

And so, by understanding these connections, we generate the symbiotic behaviors.

  • Participating while adapting
  • Exercising while generating
  • Cleaning while feeding
  • Generating waste while being fed
  • Cooking while heating
  • Coloring while relaxing


Students: Rafael Abboud, Juan Gabriel Secondo, Irene Rodríguez 

Faculty: Daniel Ibáñez, Vicente Guallart