Bow house | Studio Malka Architecture

“The World is Yours” as the Queen’s native rapper Nas has once dropped.
Literally, what’s outside is ours to share.
The redefinition of public space as the negative image of private space broadens the range of possibilities in terms of reinterpreting urban space.
These are the guidelines of this hip hop rooted architecture:
To reclaim neglected areas of the city to transform them, using existing objects just like a sampler to rebuilt a whole new track.
Settled as an extension of a public square, the Bow-House showcase a unique kind of shelter. Indeed, this project is an open housing unit, literally a straight continuity of the public space, open to all passersby and welcoming everyone in a light and clear space, stretched out the sidewalks of the streets.
This spontaneous communitary location redefines the housing perception, as it’s a shelter for all to share.
Bow-House is a flexible system, not a mobile house but a light and static,zero cost housing for nomadic people.
Housing, in it’ essence is no more than a prime shelter, it has turned into an emotional closet; we are collecting objects to “improve” our privacy by filling the empty spaces of our homes.
We could easily find all the services that a house allow in any city: hotel rather than a bedroom, a spa wider than a shower, restaurant instead of kitchen, etc…’s essence is no more than a prime shelter, it has turned into an emotional closet; we are collecting objects to “improve” our privacy by filling the empty spaces of our homes.
We could easily find all the services that a house allow in any city: hotel rather than a bedroom, a spa wider than a shower, restaurant instead of kitchen, etc.. using the huge variety that any city provides, boosting theses activities and lowering the prices due to this massive new uses.
The Bow-House project is a vertical extension of the property parcel, adding another layer to the existing building, an eye opener added to a blind wall, a large bow window added as an extension of the existing building.
The house consists of a combination of assembled salvaged windows.
As the living memory of buildings to which they once belonged, the windows are assembled and reassembled in a random patchwork, shapes, colors of glass, and types: inward- or outward-opening systems, sliding or pivoting, louvered or folding windows; the combination of different windows creates a modular screen.
This project aims to encourage public participation as an act of resistance against the laws of the marketplace and the commodification of construction, as well as lobbying by local authorities, which poisons architecture with its standards and labels.
Graffitis and blind walls have always done amazing combinaisons as it shows architectural anatomies that are natural extensions of the public domain.
As for the project, it sets perfectly the background wall as an urban wallpaper for the house, a welcoming place to share increasing even more to that feeling of an open location.
Bow-House is a graffitectural project, an emerging architecture coming straight from the Hip-Hop domain, turning the neglected parts of the city into a spontaneous piece;
Even tough the project installation is made out of many doors, none of them where use to fulfill their initial function as the entrance is an open gap, an invitation to welcome each and everyone passing down the street.

Team: Amélia Chevée, Hubert Yohann, Lise Marie Architects, , Laurent Clement Photographer