NOMADIC HOUSE
AL ARAQIB, ISRAEL, 2019
MIT RESEARCH PROJECT
NuVu PRIZE FOR OUTSTANDING RESEARCH
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The people of the village Al Araqib in Israel's Negev Desert are prevented from building permanent housing for political reasonsâ€, ‬and the police demolish all their houses every three weeksâ€. ‬Working with residents of Al Araqibâ€, ‬we designed a temporary structure that would follow design principles the residents of Al Araqib were already usingâ€. ‬This†‬research†‬explores†‬how†‬digital†‬fabrication†‬can†‬be†‬used†‬to†‬empower disenfranchised communities to act as their own architectsâ€. ‬Because of the constant demolitionsâ€, ‬the residents have to re-build their structuresâ€, ‬and appropriate architecture as a resistance toolâ€, ‬and not only as a housing solutionâ€. ‬This circumstance allows us to develop†a structure designed primarily for the condition of rapid disassembly that†‬can additionally be produced with a low-tech setup of a mobile CNC routerâ€. ‬Beyond aiding†‬the Bedouin’s fight for justiceâ€, ‬our intention as designersâ€, ‬acutely aware of the power of technology and architectureâ€, ‬is to harness both physical and†digital tools in an effort to create innovative systems that can be leveraged†by unrecognized populations†‬struggling for cultural survivalâ€.‬
MIT team: Molly Mason, David Allen White, Hugh Ebdy, Yaara Yaacoby, Hila Sharabi with Larry Sass. The project was published at IJAC (International Journal of Architectural Computing), June 2020.
