Imagine a house that stays stable only if its inhabitants cooperate! Here’s a home that is balanced on an axis. It’s called ReActor, and is part of the 2016-17 Architecture Omi exhibition WOOD: From Structure to Enclosure.

Check out this amazing video:

The home was constructed at the Omi sculpture park in the Hudson Valley north of Manhattan.  The house-like structure balances off of a central axis, and tilts, rocks, sways, and turns a full 360-degrees.

Inside there’s a bed, dining table and sink. the architects each spent five days living inside and occupying either side of ReActor. Their daily routines are influenced by the movements of the other.

If one leans over the edge of an extruded balcony at on end, the other has to do so as well to ensure stability. Perhaps as a physical metaphor for the shared responsibility of cooperation, Schweder and Shelley’s latest example of “social relationship architecture” expressed as “performative architecture” builds on earlier collaborative projects like the Counterweight Room – in which two performers rely on the tug-and-pull of each other’s weight to interact with a vertical interior. After this, their first outdoor work, the duo hopes to continue their exploration of how constructed surroundings can impact relationship dynamics and vice versa. The correspondence between sculpture, architecture and interaction takes the notions of praxis, high and low art, as well as conceptual expression to new echelons.

 

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