House Coat In an interior, the body is surrounded by layers such as clothing, textiles, furniture and wallpaper. The walls, ceiling and floor are the larger containers of these layers. The meeting of these two realms defines both the temporary and the permanent nature of architecture and interior objects. One of the most temporary objects — the clothing one wears, is the first layer to house the body. House Coat uses the notations of architectural drafting to alter the domestic act of sewing. The instructions of how to construct a coat from a pattern are re- written in the language of architecture and typed onto the surface of the coat. The fabric of the coat is the architectural paper used for drafting — tracing paper (left). The shift from fabric to paper offers the potential for a lightweight wearable interior, one that is made through sewing. When backlit, the poché is highlighted, as if looking at an x-ray to see the unoccupied space of the wearer (fig. 2). The phenomenal aspect of light and transparency often found in architecture is now brought to the interior. Wing Chair Traditionally furniture is secondary to architecture. The architecture is built first and then occupied by things. Wing Chair challenges this order and allows the furniture to organize architecture through its construction, taking cues from clothing patterns. Specifically, the sewing technique of a dart allows material to become more fitted to the figure. Clothing patterns show how to fold the material in order to go move from a flat to a developed surface (above right). Here, the construction of the dart finds its way into the construction of a chair indicating where it can fold and unfold, thereby taking on characteristics of clothing construction (bottom right). The unfolded chair resembles an architectural drawing in a plan view, but upon folding the dart, the chair organizes the connected floor of architecture. The traditionally temporary way that a chair is placed in a room is transformed. It now has a primary role; the architecture responds in a secondary way. The heavy weight of architecture, taking new direction from sewing, allows it to break away from permanence becoming more lightweight, more responsive, while the chair becomes the heavyweight.
Lois Weinthal is an Assistant Professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin. She teaches architecture and interiors and continues to explore the space of interiors through peripheral disci- plines.
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