Thursday 27 November 2008

Callum Morton + Safdie

Habitat

Callum Morton's Habitat is a 1:50 scale architectural model of Safdie's 'Habitat', to which lights and sound have been added to suggest a day in the life of the housing complex. As the sun rises we see and hear the day begin, and we imagine the lives of the people within the building. Conversations and activity continue for 28 minutes (one fiftieth of a day) and then the lights dim as a simulated nighttime commences. The cycle continues in perpetuity, and whilst the viewer is free to leave this room, the inhabitants of the building are trapped. Thus Safdie's dream of community living is juxtaposed with a sham reality. Building dwellers are locked in a diminutive scale and accelerated time frame, bound to do the same things day-in, day-out, all caught in a cycle of unending routine.

A brochure of the project can be dowloaded here.

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