Quarantined Atmospheres

This thesis explores how atmospheric isolation contributes to the creation and maintenance of the domestic interior. My contention is that our methods of environmental control are tightly woven with the establishment of domestic social spaces. Increases in the level of atmospheric containment yield tighter barriers against the presence of others. Social topologies are dependent on moments of free exchange and interaction, which diminish as the domestic barrier is strengthened. Conditions and processes outside become increasingly rejected. This thesis critically reimagines the barriers which maintain spaces of isolation in the domestic context. This is explored through testing the limits and possibilities of environmental and social porosity in conditions of quarantine, aided by a series of submerged physical architectural models. The thesis culminates in the design of a space of quarantine, composed of four components that blur boundaries around interior spaces and atmospheres, enabling an inhabitation that occupies multiple, shifting relational fields.