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Bubblehouse

2A+P/A

Make sure your architectural desires have solid basis.


The story narrated in the "Bubblehouse" video was originally conceived for a picture-story published in "2a+p. Rivista di progettazione" that was produced by the same group of architects between 1999 and 2001 as an investigation through arts, architecture and theory.

In this video, made in the year 2000, the authors Gianfranco Bombaci and Matteo Costanzo (when they were still part of the original wider group of young architects called 2a+p), made a critical experiment by ironically dealing with the obsession for digital technology and virtual reality. They noticed the trend (as well as the downsides) of the so-called "blob architecture", which was spreading in the architectural debate at that time.

The fluid space of the "Bubblehouse" is only mentioned and not completely described in the video. The elastic house - in which forms and functions blend into a single liquid substance - is supposed to be entirely built with a sophisticated software technology. The authors criticize the inconsistency of architectural projects that rely on digital technologies in a simplistic manner. Furthermore, they highlight how the assumed magnificent results of this design approach generate a new idea of house, intended as a status symbol and a means of buying back social popularity and improving social life. In the romanticized and ironic story set in the future by 2a+p, a computer engineer (not an architect!) is taking a revenge on his boring life as an employee of a big company by means of virtually building and showing his beautiful but unreal house, that in the end turns out to be just an illusion.

Credits


Italy 2000
Duration: 4'49''

Selected for the 2000 edition of the International Festival for Architecture in Video (then BEYOND MEDIA Festival) organized by Image.