during their undergrad at Architecture school in 1994, Stephanie Forsythe + Todd MacAllen took part in a large-scale architecture project in a remote part of Colombia. Initially, they studied villagers’ houses and observed that they were built lightly with simple construction, had an open plan, and were flexible and responsive to the climate.
Stephanie and Todd noticed how the house adapted to change as a married couple moved into the wife’s parent’s home and had children. Lightweight partition walls or screens that didn’t reach the ceiling were added to the living area, allowing privacy and accommodating airflow. As the family structure changes, lightweight partitions are adapted, added, or removed.
during his Architecture thesis in 1999, Todd participated in an Architecture + Design university program, teaching in West Africa. The course occurred in a remote village where families are dynamic and ever-changing. Men might have multiple wives, and each wife claims her own space within the home. The simply built houses are lightly partitioned so that each wife and her children have a sense of privacy. As Children grow up, they attain privacy, further partitioning the space. The light fabric partitions are easily adapted to family conditions and removed in the daytime, allowing for a larger multi-family gathering space.
in 2001, Forsythe + MacAllen came to the understanding that globally, most housing is challenged by the economics of making do with small spaces. This sparked the idea to develop and design expandible/compressible private spaces within the home. An adaptable room could borrow from and give back to a more generous gathering space for a family than wouldn’t otherwise be possible. This began a long study of how to partition space in a light and flexible way, initiating their "soft" concept for flexible interior architecture, furniture and lighting as part of their studies with flexible housing.
The Aomori Housing Competition
in 2002, Stephanie + Todd were awarded the Grand Prize for the International Design Competition in Tokyo: Northern Style Housing Complex in Aomori, Japan, along with the Commission to develop the design for a new building site.
“The work by Forsythe + MacAllen, which won the Grand Prize, was excellent because relations between meteorological conditions of a snowy region and architecture were considered from poetic perspectives.” – Jean Nouvel
the competition’s objective was to mitigate suburban sprawl by designing 200 apartments, together with other aspects of community living, to make it desirable for people to live in the city centre again.
the Aomori housing competition was the genesis of Forsythe + MacAllen’s “soft” concept of flexible interior architecture. Understanding that most housing in cities worldwide is challenged by the economics of making do with small spaces, Forsythe + MacAllen developed designs through drawings and study models between 2001 – 2002. These studies demonstrated that expandable / compressible private space within the home could borrow from and give back to a more generous gathering space that would otherwise not be possible for a family living in a small space. They realized that if bedrooms or rooms for private study and work could fold or compress when not in use, an otherwise small apartment could feel quite spacious.
decades of study
over three decades, Forsythe + MacAllen have been studying the concept of flexible spacing making and its impact on how we live and work. Multiple iterations of the groundbreaking soft collection have been put to use and featured in over 100 institutions around the world, including the MoMA and the Nobel Prize Museum. Explore the full collection:
Photo Credit: Barry Gnip
Photo Credit: Alana Peterson
