Rivière, Sarah Margaret; (2023) THE STASIS ARENA: Re-negotiating the architecture of the social through kindred confrontation at 835 Kings Road. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This thesis re-animates the ancient Greek concept of stasis (στάσις) as a restrained confrontation between kindred yet dissenting parties. Combining archival research with speculative design, the work enables exchanges characterised by stasis to be performed in text and stop-motion animation through the case study of the “Schindler House” (1922) at 835 Kings Road, West Hollywood. A multi-faceted understanding of stasis as a conceptual tool is developed, through which rich concatenations of social space can be constituted. Stasis is brought to life in response to Adrian Forty’s position that architectural modernism was “surprisingly inarticulate when it came to describing the specific social qualities aimed for in its works” (2000, p. 103). Performed here as a research methodology, the stasis arena becomes a space of confrontational engagement that demands participation and restraint. While largely informed by ancient Greek thought, reference to agonist, critical spatial and semantic discourse on the social enables a malleable understanding of stasis to be configured and applied as a speculative tool to discuss located social exchange within architectural history and design. Grounded in archival sources (ADC/UCSB), the methodology sets up stasis by re- presenting the initial four co-residents of 835 Kings Road as equitably matched individual players engaged in confrontations that are played out through writing their entwined histories and performing fictional animated vignettes. As the four residents and their house struggle within these stasis arenas, each taking a discrete stance, the process brings to life alternate readings of the historical failure of their cooperative ambition that challenge existing architectural histories of the house and demand a shift in the future design of cooperative space. By working to maintain this series of matched stasis confrontations, the research presents the stasis arena as a place where dissensus and mutuality can generatively co-exist within cultural discourse and practice.

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