For memento,
an inversion in the conventional hierarchy of a neighborhood is
proposed. Whereas the landscape typically enhances a house, it is
proposed that landscape becomes the central focus of a homestead.
The usual manicured lawn is represented by native grasses and
wildfowers moving in the breeze. Raised landscape islands may possibly
be utilized as urban gardens for area residents. The house is reduced a wireframe representation, potentially
mimicking the form of the house that previous occupied the site. The
house itself is not intended to be habitable as a space but instead is
an exercise in fabrication that serves as latticework for an urban
garden that rises up through a formerly human occupied space Instead of using energy, power will be created through solar and
wind sources, as well as geothermal fields located in the "lawns"
providing Green Power and direct heating potential to its neighbors.
The manifolds and transfers for the utilities will occupy utility
"cores" in the house and throughout the site.
With lawns of native grasses and energy producing technology, memento naturally
lends itself for education and research. The chosen site is located in
the Cleveland Ecovillage for this purpose, although its inclusion in
any neighborhood would be considered "neighborly".