Brooke McLaughlin

Ordinary Acts of Common

The rhythms of domestic life are largely hidden behind walls and closed doors, rendering everyday acts of care invisible. Further, the ability to have a home to invite others into and to know one’s neighbors has become a privilege, which produces a challenge in how we live together. Ordinary Acts of Common reframes this narrative, drawing attention to everyday routine visible as public care. 

By situating itself in Roxbury, Massachusetts, opportunities emerge to recognize shared humanity through the inhabitation and maintenance of programmed public rooms. Without walls to privatize care, the rhythms of resting, cooking, living, and caring become legible as collective practices. Seeking to delight in ordinary acts in this Boston neighborhood, domestic spaces and routines become instruments of civic life, where architecture is not the boundary of invisible and inaccessible care but rather the signifier of commonality within an urban context.

Centerpiece

Eight tables which only stand when every piece is plugged into the centerpiece. In the game, the host meticulously programs various settings first done as a collective, then done in pairs, then individually, but always done together.

House with Wall-less Walls

If a wall is defined as a vertical structure which encloses, divides, and lends itself to privacy, what would it mean if a house were designed where walls lose their wall attributes and no longer obstruct access or visibility?
 

Public Domestic

What happens when the domestic comes out in public? If we study various home layouts in apartments surrounding liberty square in Boston, how does its value change when they become meshed together in a public square, free to experience as a public amenity?

Scaled Domestic Condition

Household furniture scaled from 1 to 2, 20, 200, speculating that these things could be done collectively.

Absurd Conditions Garden

Scaled furniture assembled in a park, for domestic conditions to be engaged with collectively and as a public amenity.