ZOID is a shelter arrayed around a courtyard. ZOID posits a way of living – somewhere between a house and a campsite - focused on basic elements needed to live in the world. Both a stripped down shelter and a “proto-proto-type” for an affordable house, ZOID is designed to prioritize nature and the collective engagement with others. This shelter, is able to be entered from all apertures and thus challenges formal hierarchies and culturally preconceived notions of a house.
ZOID comes from an on-going geometric study centered around an asymmetical trapezoidal shape. Innovating with the formal and perceptual potentials of this simple form at various scales, ZOID is a shelter in the fields at Art Omi in Ghent, New York. Since ZOID’s ultimate objective is to be a holistic collective living environment, the study of the architecture is just one component of the whole. Light, the experience of the interior, a reductive approach to furniture and materials are also part of the piece.
In ZOID’s fabrication lies the ideas of its geometry and its expansive nature from courtyard out to landscape. The 30/60 degree angle occurs repeatedly throughout the work bench cut sheet: studs are ripped along their length and adjacent plywood edges are cut at the same angle ultimately forming the angled wall of each ZOID and the rake of each roof. ZOID’s construction is done as panels assembled on site. Working from inside at the courtyard first to outside, the rings of panels stabilize the lateral forces of the shelter first. Ultimately, gravity and lateral forces are resolved in the same way as the first layer of rings. When complete the ZOID shelter is stabilized through the dependency of each ZOID upon the other.
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