I have sometimes had to explain, maybe more than necessary, the singular condition of the doctoral thesis I defended last 10 October. Not long ago, while visiting Arco in Madrid, a dear colleague from the Department of Projects asked me about how a doctoral thesis can be presented teaching your own projects.
The following lines are aimed to be an answer and clarification of what I think it is a misunderstanding.
The projects and pieces showed in the doctoral thesis “Experimental Incursions in Prefabricated houses. Furniture Kit” was thought of and specifically built for the doctoral thesis. In 2003, Rodrigo, Rufo and Fernando, assistant students in the study, would help me with exploratory models of what the concept of a premade furnished house could be. The very dynamics of the investigation led us to present these early researches to the Social Housing Contest of CSCAE (mention) and to Accommodation for Temporary Contest (First Prize), but all this, even the chance to build the Arkit Prototype was nothing but the practical correlative to the theoretical inquiry going on these years.
Elisa Valero defined the thesis as “biographic”. It was the only way to describe an academic process of almost 20 years. So it may well be. But when you have to build at least two real-scale housing prototypes, finding external fund for it, to be able to establish operative conclusions of a research proposal the process can’t be turned but into biographic.
The research was planned ahead like that from the beginning, from its first inscription memory: it would be a research on architecture by really building up its premises, to further analyse them in their complete material reality.
You cannot say it is not a singular purpose.
