Concept sketch for the folly house, 2014. Soupy spaces are formed at the fringes of traditional or established structures ( structures would imply hierarchies, methods, associations ). Here the fragments of traditional structures remain suspended in a thick soup with their splintered edges providing opportunity for ingress of new structures.
[We’re all just mostly swimming]
Soupy Spaces
Soupy spaces have temporal dimensions. They are flexible, combinative, evolving, formative, generative, shared, excitable, transformative, experimental, associative, in-discriminate, competitive. They are not permanent, established or formed. They appear and disappear at will. But they are not undefined, ambiguous or compromised. They are spaces created for a particular duration (long or short) to harness available potentialities to meet a particular need. As the need diminishes so does the space. Soupy spaces allow for Re-alignment, Re-affiliation, and Re-association. But they are not direction-less or disorienting. Soupy spaces are inclusive spaces, co-owned, collaborative. In soupy spaces formations like communities, professional groups, public are in constant flux. Soupy spaces are not non-hierarchical or permanently heterogeneous. Each formation achieves its particular hierarchies, its own level of heterogeneity, gendering, identities to meet a particular need. And as the need transitions into another, so does the space. Soupy spaces are not non-ideological spaces, but temporarily ideological spaces to address a particular need.
Soupy spaces are de-territorialized spaces, boundaries are porous, frayed edges, walls are built as anchors and not as divisions. Soupy spaces encourage thoroughfare, are accessible and connected. They are multi-centered and mobile. The soup comprises all kinds of disparate anchors, leftovers of old hierarchical social structures, huddles of like-minded people, fragments of historic spaces and coagulations of newer approaches, techniques, materials. Each of these anchors remains suspended within the soup, activated only by association or need.
Where are the most likely locations to create soupy spaces?
The soup doesn’t require expanse. It can be squeezed into any given situation – fringes of older establishments, cosmopolitan neighbourhoods, progressive work cultures, design collaboratives, public spaces, inter-marriages, trans-border relationships, trans-anything, at the gates of gated communities.
“Soupy spaces are half abstract, half real. Since ‘soupy’ stands for everything correct in the world, our studio has been pursuing every possibility to make soupy spaces a reality.”
“The folly house is a bit of a culmination of many thought and design experiments. We have been theorizing the idea of soupy space for a while now. Soupy spaces are by nature creative, unpredictable, constantly in a state of forming. At least thats what we believe. These mobile units have been used by us in offices that required flexible layouts, design studios who wanted to meet more often, houses that wanted to party, lounges that wanted to work. When spaces are allowed to transform it adds to their potential to accommodate different uses. This also keeps the users nimble, creative.”
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