IGRU (Individual Guerilla Refuge Unit)

The introduction by Robert McCarter to Architecture Pamphlets #12 refers to Le Corbusier's concept of a house as a "Machine for Living," while criticizing the financial and technological optimization of architectural machines in the modern world. Optimizations that have stripped experiential qualities from architecture, and subsequently old fashioned mechanics.

To quote McCarter, "It is contemporary man's peculiar tendency to place economic and technological considerations ahead of more fundamental human values. As a result, technology itself has become alienated from us, and the world defined by technological evaluations has acted to alienate us from our fellow man."

Older machines at the turn of the century however, had experiential qualities that modern machines lack.
"The inventions of these original technologists are, by today's utilitarian standards, arcane, outmoded, excessively gestural, inefficient, and very frequently "failures"-failures as machines but wonderful successes as human endeavors. If these inventive experimental machines are used as sources of inspiration in the creation of contemporary architecture, as to reground it in experience, it may thereby be possible to use the machine while at the same time rejecting the economic determinism and technological state of dependency."

This IGRU project was born from an architectural studio I took, where the task was to design a living unit for homeless on Skid Row in Los Angeles. A structure that is functional to an individual who lives in it, and not as flimsy or ephemeral as a tent.

My proposal here is motivated by the concepts of Architectural Pamphlet #12 briefly described above. This organic space is an experiential reflection on the conditions of Skid Row. A rough outer shell solidifies a place on the public sidewalk, while the interior is a soft organic space formed in the crevices of the shell.

The IGRU has a feature where drill strings bore deep past sidewalk fill into the earth after which these strings fill with concrete that dries to become pile foundations. A sort of parasitical structure that as a machine, isn't efficient. There are better ways to root a small building. However, the conceptual nature of growing roots that dig into the ground works from an experiential level. A living machine with an outer form that communicates both the surrounding and internal conditions. Something that is deeply lacking in anything designed for or around homelessness.

Some of the diagrams here imagine Skid Row in Los Angeles as a board game like monopoly, to direct attention to the way that the LA city council treats this city. If typical average citizens are placing on tiles "Houses," or "Apartments," and homeless are placing "tents," then what happens if homeless place IGRU units that root into the ground and are permanently embedded in the game board? The public reaction would likely be absurd. In monopoly rules, this would likely be considered cheating.