Southern Lumber Company Model Homes, 2015
I live half a mile from 804 N Eastern Avenue, the site of the House Life Project, on a block not dissimilar to this one, in a neighborhood where I have connections back to my grandparents.
The House Life Project house was built by the Southern Lumber Company, the same suburban builders who built my sister's house in the early 1900s. The floorplan is identical to her house, just mirrored. Walking into it for the first time, I already knew it.
I've asked neighbors on this block and my sister on her block to draw floorplans of their homes from memory. From these drawings, I construct model homes; though all of these houses are physically nearly identical, each drawing expands or contracts in the translation. We attach memories and stories to places, which in turn shape the places in our minds, and make them habitable.
I live half a mile from 804 N Eastern Avenue, the site of the House Life Project, on a block not dissimilar to this one, in a neighborhood where I have connections back to my grandparents.
The House Life Project house was built by the Southern Lumber Company, the same suburban builders who built my sister's house in the early 1900s. The floorplan is identical to her house, just mirrored. Walking into it for the first time, I already knew it.
I've asked neighbors on this block and my sister on her block to draw floorplans of their homes from memory. From these drawings, I construct model homes; though all of these houses are physically nearly identical, each drawing expands or contracts in the translation. We attach memories and stories to places, which in turn shape the places in our minds, and make them habitable.