Proposal for dwellings formed by excavating spaces from large polystyrene block, sprayed internally with fibreglass, and dismantling polystyrene.

Why don’t rabbits dig rectangular burrows? 

Why didn’t early man make rectangular caves?

Supposition: Architect … Client wanting single-storey house in the landscape.

Phase 1: Burrows … Purchase foamed polystyrene block 40ft by 40ft by 15ft and suitable burrowing tools, e.g. electric hedge-cutter, blowlamp. Block placed on site, burrowing commences, kids carving out playroom, etc, parents carving rest. Architects advising.

Phase 2: Dissolve … House burrow completed. Enter burrow with plastic and fibreglass spray machinery, (with client) spray burrow under supervision of plastics engineer. Client chooses regions of surfaces to be transparent or translucent, the spray mixture alters accordingly.

Phase 3: Completion … Shell entered by architect and service consultants and client. Client decides upon regions of lighting, wall, floor, heating, sinks, power points.

David Greene

Not exactly the spray house but more dig-’n-spray-’n-polish. The thought of living in a cave does not really appeal to me. However, as a mould for the kind of space you could make from the inside to the outside – a primitive poche – it does. The burrow-dissolve-complete fabrication method makes a de-architecture – you do not know what you are going to find until the crust dissolves. It does not permit the formal process of simultaneous tuning-up of the interior and exterior. It is not at all concerned with the facades. It was another attempt to apply emerging technology to a familiar architectural programme in an extreme but entirely logical manner.

In this small house project the new technology was not actually a technology at all but a set of new materials: foamed-polystyrene; glass-fibre and resin; and a machine – a glass-fibre and resin spray gun. It seemed to offer an ‘automatic’ architecture whose shape would not be revealed until the interior, and a very personal, hand made kind of interior space, was complete: architecture guaranteed if you follow the instructions on the packet.

At the time this project presented some opposition to the accepted definition of architecture as that which concerns itself solely with the public realm, the interior was no-one’s business but its occupants.

The Disreputable Projects of David Greene, Written and edited by David Greene 
and Samantha Hardingham, 2008: London, Architectural Association