Monospace and Multiverse

1. Why did you choose this topic?

The project began with a personal fascination for the ephemeral in architecture, the life of buildings and other structures that cannot be captured in images, or only to a limited extent. The monospace seemed particularly exciting in this respect because here a floor plan tells us little about the processes that potentially develop with the building.

2. What new perspectives does your book offer?

Understanding space as a social process with buildings opens a nuanced view into the everyday of our built environment. Here we encounter a contingent world of entanglements, negotiations, and contradictions. Turning to the building in practice we witness the many other entities necessary to produce space, and thus this book is an invitation to rethink our very understanding of space and the roles and relation of the architect and the people engaging with a given building.

3. What makes your topic relevant for current research debates?

We face massive social and ecological challenges to which architecture must respond. This empirically grounded study offers insights into how Actor-Network-Theory provides a nuanced understanding of the many processes that occur with buildings, objects, and materials and often overlooked or unheard actors, like the ›users‹. A detailed understanding of our entanglements with humans and nonhumans with the built environment is the first step towards ›better‹ spaces for livable futures.

4. Choose one person you would like to discuss your book with!

With the architectural historian Hilde Heynen.

5. Your book summary in one sentence:

There is no simple way of knowing a building – space is never ›completed‹.