Amarilloism

How much can you take away from a structure before it fails to be a comfortable living space? This is the question I’ve been asking myself lately, out of desperation and a deep seated need to have my own space. With little to no funds to allocate to the construction of a house, even a tiny one, I wonder how much can I afford not to build.

In Jamaica’s tropical marine climate, there are many things that a building doesn’t “need.” Insulation for example is very optional in the tropics. While it is a must for a house with mechanical cooling and ventilation (where your trying to efficiently keep cold in and heat out,) because our climate never is more hot than cold, a house that relys on passive cooling techniques and natural ventilation functions better when its walls don’t absorb or retain heat. In the same vein, our building don’t need thermal mass (though it can be helpful in cooling) as a lighter (mass) well ventilated building facilitates the cooling of a space just as well if not better, and is less resource intensive at that.

Jamaican vernacular architecture, which historically was built using wood, often consisted of stick framed houses with siding, usually with its structural members exposed to the inside. It’s skeleton, literally laid bare, often became a part of the interior, becoming shelves for small sculptures, trinkets and picture frames. This facade, though bare-bones in its construction, still serves the function of keeping out the elements and demarcating the inside from the outside. I personally can appreciate this traditional construction, even though it has now come to be synonymous with poverty, fire and flying zinc roofs.

This bare-bones architecture served the needs of the people who built and inhabited it; could this architecture do the same for me? Nothing I designed for myself over the years, despite them being micro-homes, is anywhere within my grasp. The need for my own place, in the countryside hasn’t gone away despite me shelving my dreams for almost 5 years. With finances being my only hurdle now, could stripping back my plans for insulated tiny house with triple pane glass and fancy wooden doors to a more bare bones vernacular approach be the solution.

I am plagued with these ideas of what I need of what is a decent standard of living but when I interrogate them, they fall apart. Why do I think an outdoor shower to be beneath me when I have designed high-end outdoor showers before? I don’t think I have ever before actually questioned my architectural assumptions about what is necessary for a structure to be a house, or what is necessary for me to make a house my home.