In his 1965 article A home is not a house the architectural historian and theoretician Reyner Banham developed an infrastructural approach to dwelling. Based on his observation of ever-more-flimsy architectures that are made habitable by ever-more-massive machinery he started thinking from a standard of living package right away – which can be a radio, a weather station, a cooker, lamps, sanitary facilities in our case. Banham pushed the idea to its logical/illogical conclusion: „the open plan to end open plans, a wall-less, garden house sheltering under the spreading arms of the ultimate appliance“. Banham’s extreme anatomy of dwelling was visualized by François Dallegret. In the environment bubble “power-membranes” replace solid walls. The membranes are inflated by the standard living package which they also protect.
Environment Bubble
