During this three month residency in Graz (Austria) which has been awarded by Haus der Architektur and Pépinières européennes pour jeunes artistes, I will research the participatory housing projects of the architect Eilfried Huth in 'Am Leopoldsgrund', Puntigam (built: 1976-1982) and 'Eschensiedlung', Deutschlandsberg (built: 1972-1992).

”It was a dream, but we woke to the reality. We saw on the one hand the devastation of the landscape through thousands of free standing houses –my home is our chaos –and on the other the desolation of high rise blocks of flats in the West and in the East.”[1]

Huth’s statement –My home is our chaos – with it’s juxtaposition of the individual ‘my’ and its implied sense of ownership with the collective ‘our’, will be a point of departure for my research at Pepinieres Osterreich, Graz. This statement or warning, reflects Huth’s belief in the importance of collective housing over individual family homes, for their ability to offer a sense of social cohesion as well as ownership and participation for their tenants.

“…individual creativity is of central importance: Legitimated personal contribution is the starting point for new creativity and production of thoughts. It will bridge the gap of misunderstanding between art and mass population will.”

This endeavour to find a new equilibrium between the collective and private manifest in ‘self-help housing’ in the 1960’s when he introduced strategies to collaborate with tenants in creating new housing programmes.

Developing ideas and research can be found on my wikispace..

Work produced in response to the residency will be exhibited at HDA in September 2009. For more details see:
'Made in the Dark' Haus der Architektur, Graz