HETEROTOPIA
For this exercise, we were asked to create « an enclosure. »
When we took possession of and analysed the site, the Bassenge farm, we realised that everything was organised in a straight line (private spaces, public spaces, traffic routes and even agricultural land).
Moreover, this site is very exposed to noise, wind, light and visibility. Then, our wish was to create a kind of heterotopia in which we feel a different atmosphere, to be alone, calm and facing ourselves and our imagination, contrasting with the functional dynamics outside.
To create this atmosphere, we were inspired by Michel Foucault and his theory and reflections on heterotopias. A heterotopia is a concept, a space that emerges from the imagination.
It is by reflecting on and appropriating Foucault's theory that we decided to create a 9m2 dry stone cube, cubic like the majority of shapes that represent a well-organised world where each space is calculated to be functional. Thus, we surround a very small part of the plot but in which our imagination can become infinite. The aim is to create a strong contrast between exterior and interior space. In the interior space, some stones have been placed in such a way that they can be moved, and it is by playing with their size that we can redefine and redesign the space. The space evolves rather than remaining fixed.
Finally, by creating this heterotopia, we recreate, redefine an inner garden, a space in which we feel free to imagine, move and redefine the space around us, for our desires, at a given moment.