Caroline Hayes
a conduit, a container, a spot of ink
a conduit, a container, a spot of ink concerns the domestic sphere and its position within and outside larger systems of power. Domesticity offers an opportunity to inhabit time without actively consuming or producing. This use of time is ritualistic, dawdling, and taking care to the point of frivolity: maintaining, waiting, rearranging. The performance of the American Domestic relies on a triviality not respected in the discipline despite the politics embedded within.
As the domestic and the bodies within remain overlooked and unseen, so do the materials that circulate in, out, and around it. Drywall hides pipes and wires, muting noise and covering smells; meanwhile, infrastructure regulates the inefficiency of natural events. Either realm, large or small, prioritizes a semblance of continuity.
For example, water as a resource is not predictable over years, decades, or even centuries of study within California. Take the San Joaquin Valley, the 400-mile site of enduring struggle over access. Its proximity to infrastructure invites both an intimate knowledge and sense of crisis. Paradoxically, a resident’s water anxiety stems from the aqueducts running around them.
In the town of Ceres, just outside of Modesto, flows a minor canal. Across from the canal, on the edge of suburbia and farmland, there is a house. Somewhere among a series of artifacts of developed surface interiors, hard-soft fabric plaster casts, and imperfect extrusions, a house becomes a water silo, assuming eternal uncertainty of the land upon which it sits. Working against the construction of the American Domestic is a misuse of plaster, operating outside of its purposes of smoothing surfaces or adorning walls. Extrusion techniques render canals equal to molding, whose enlarged scales adapt the use of pipes and plenum walls. The monumentality of the concrete canal stands in tension with the delicate scale of the domestic. Alongside the profile is the void, displaying the monumental channel and the space it contains.
Plaster is this project’s unwise choice of medium. It is imprecise, laborious, expensive, and nearly always needs finishing. The technique requires an understanding of the material beyond physical properties, forcing an intimacy with its use that does not fit within the rhythm of an architectural project. In engaging both the process and the documentation as political, this thesis uses the language of intimacy to re-read multiple scales of control and representation within different spheres.
“Bayeux”
Stitch of internal elevations of a domestic space at 3/4” = 1’ scale. CNC Mills hatch impressions on the wall, along with symbols instructing the sewing of each panel. Additional annotations correct measurements, insert additional details, revise sewing plans, and jot personal notes.
“Dev”
Developed surface model of a domestic space at ½” = 1’ scale. Each wall can attach to one another with snap button enclosures, forming an impression of continuity without specifically generating a plan.
“Canvas”
Developed surface model of a domestic space at 1” = 1’ scale, laid flat.
“Pillow”
Plaster cast of tapestry of internal elevations, photographed on the creation table with tools and various casting vessels.
“Pillow”
Detail of tapestry plaster cast, as fabric peels from the plaster.
“Canal”
Plaster model of a canal. Created using extrusion techniques developed for plaster moldings, at the scale of ornamental molding.
“Bathtub”
Fabric developed surface model of a bathtub, a container of water.
“Documents”
Documents laid out. Thesis research, recipes for plaster casts, writings and research photographs