Open Space 2023Open Space 2023

According to Khaefi, the potential of the design discipline extends far beyond the built execution of a design. Although architecture was originally associated with the tangible built environment, she now envisages mainly potential applications of the theory and imagination that are also part of her field. In line with her graduation project and thesis, she approaches the private sphere from different angles: inspired by a wide range of novelists, philosophers and master builders, she presents architecture as a theoretical and didactic instrument.

In Khaefi's own words: Architecture was long conceived as the primary player in the establishment of private life. Currently, however, in the face of new technological advancement, when the invasion of privacy takes place mainly on a virtual scale, the compatibility of architecture and privacy seems to be nonexistent.

The exhibition (Un)Private Life, based on the master’s thesis Explicating Privacy, critically approaches the role of architecture in creating privacy in the current reality from various perspectives.

In a theoretical framework, an investigation through four works of literature demonstrates the concept of transparency and its role in abolishing privacy. We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, Mortelle by Christopher Frank, Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, and The Trial by Franz Kafka are examples that each illustrate a peculiar absence of privacy worth contemplating.

In a categorical investigation, by presenting every imaginable way to achieve privacy, be it physical, virtual, or even fictional, an Encylopedia of Privacy is created, listed by items that somehow lend themselves to creating a private state for humans.

While fighting different battles, one on the ground and the other in ones and zeros, the inability of architecture in resurrecting the lost privacy of our time to its full essence is palpable. However, defeat is yet to be declared; architecture is more than its built reality. Although it finds its ultimate manifestation when built, architecture can use its theoretical power to accommodate designs that push the boundaries of convention to investigate topics that are not communicated properly with words. Designs that illustrate ideas, theories, and concepts. Two design proposals are, thus, the final critical exercise to tackle the notion of privacy:

Frankenstein’s House creates a superstructure of privacy, through storytelling, illustrations, and instrumentalising the Encyclopedia of Privacy. It exhibits all the items that either create privacy as the result of physically existing, or by representing different levels of meaning that could bring awareness at the moment of encounter.

The Liquid House, with a reference to Zygmunt Bauman’s notion of liquidity, addresses the liquid nature of privacy, ever-changing and evolving. With the help of movable walls, moveable floors, and transparent and solid walls, the Liquid House could offer privacy and publication at any time. Living in such a house is the embodiment of the way new technologies can evaporate privacy, even with the hand of our family members.

While architecture may succeed in creating privacy in the physical realm albeit failing on a virtual scale, it could use its theoretical power to open up debates to address the topic of privacy. Architecture, therefore, can explicate privacy, demonstrating its value, and hopefully take a step in preventing its decay.

Arghavan Khaefi has recently graduated from the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) and her graduation project featured in Archiprix 2022, IABR22 Future Generation: This Is 2072, and Archined. She is enthusiastic about a kind of architecture that passes the borders of conventionality; a medium that can address ideas, issues, and daily human struggles by playing the edge of the field, where theory, practice, and art meet.