Architecture as Interface: Connection, Disruption, Breakdown

Abstract

The article analyzes architecture as a special interface, presenting the concept of interface through the functions of linking and separating. These functions manifest themselves in various types of architectural space organization: firstly, as intermediary connecting residents with their culture and living space, and secondly, in the image of a smart home connecting the body, imagination, and technologies of the house into a single, continuous network. The article offers a critique of the logic of the interface, which assumes transparency and the effect of direct access to the image of a controlled and perfect life. To conduct a critical analysis, the problem of breakdown is introduced as a necessary condition for the existence of technologies and the material environment of human habitation. Based on the research of N. Thrift, the concepts of uninhabited space by G. Agamben and C. Boano, the processes of rupture and destruction of the material, and the ways of interaction of residents of crisis areas with their homes are analyzed as an alternative to the invisible interface of the smart home. Confrontation with biopolitical control mechanisms is a condition for a critical attitude to the treatment of the living space of the house. Alongside crisis housing forms, Diller and Scofidio’s project is considered to further critique smart home architecture as an invisible interface closely linked to the power of visuality in a given space.

In the conclusion of the article, an inference is made about the role and function of architectural interfaces in organizing life and the possible strategies for critiquing the space of interfaces.