Shuffle House
Date: 2021
Size: 2265 square feet (210square meters)
Collection: One House Per Day, Day 486
Overview
The Shuffle House is composed of 45 concrete monolithic walls that support a concrete roof and roof meadow. The walls are cast on site using a modified tilt-up wall technique where they are cast against pits dug into the earth.
The specific shape and placement of each wall is determined by random chance based on the algorithm Ellsworth Kelly used for his 1951 painting, Cité. Inspired by conversations with John Cage and Merce Cunningham while living in Paris, Kelly explored the use of random chance to create the painting. The first operation was to paint a series of black and white brushstrokes across a sheet of paper. The second operation was to cut the paper into 20 squares and glue each to a block of wood. The final operation was to use random chance to rearrange the blocks into the final composition. Chance operations are a technique designers and artists can use to bypass their preconceived understanding of a project and to break a creative impasse.
For the house, a series of 10 curved lines were generated in the east-west direction of the house. These were then split by 100 squares and each line was given a minimum structural thickness. One side of this thickened object is curved (the side cast into the earth pit) while the other side is straight (the side facing the sky during casting). Each wall is then shuffled in order and rotated based on the seed 486. Roughly 50% of the rearranged walls are then randomly deleted.
This drawing was a partnership between designer and algorithm. The logic for the drawing and the selection of this specific iteration of the drawing was determined by the designer. The algorithm generated both the digital and the analog drawings based on these choices. The final drawing was made with an Axidraw SE/A3, Micron 08 & 005 pens, and a Papermate 0.7mm mechanical pencil.