Making Your Home, Wherever You Are | Abeer Seikaly | TEDxKlagenfurt

[Music] they say a home is where the heart is today let me show you that it can be more than that when I was five years old I remember coming back home one day and seeing this model of a strange-looking house sitting on the side table in our living room what is this I asked my dad that's our future house he said what do you mean we are in our house we're going to build a bigger house that looks like this and we're going to live in it he said I tried really hard to grasp how this oddly shaped miniature object was soon going to be built and we were going to live in it the idea of past and future the possibility of building something new and bigger simply fascinated me over the next two years I accompanied my dad to the construction site and the model at home became the basis for a deep ongoing connection between myself and the new building and as the house was getting built of course the image of that model started fading it became an artifact and a signifier of the projects final built reality this memory dwells within me no matter where I go a real turning point it's the first time I remember experiencing a physical transformation but beyond the models presence in our living room and its relationship to a design process its significance was in its potential the model represented the making of a future home that had yet to be our house was designed by a young and ambitious architect who took this on as his first project and his design philosophy was to combine modern and traditional themes by reinterpreting elements and architecture that have been abandoned most notably the courtyard Arab nomads first made use of the concept of the courtyard during their travels through the desert they set up their tents around a central space which provided shelter and security to their cattle Islamic architecture is sometimes referred to as the architecture of the Vale because elements like the courtyard correspondent with cultural beliefs like modesty and the importance of inner beauty which were visible from the inside and not from the outside and this is an example of beautiful and historical courtyard in Damascus which I visited many years ago and you know spaces like this really promoted social sustainability and they enforced family connectedness which is a prominent social value and the Middle East but today the courtyard has mostly disappeared from our homes and so living in our home with its internal garden felt unique and different the courtyard was both outside but yet within the house it acted as the principal organizer of the living space with all functions oriented towards it it was our gathering place and it reflected on themes as diverse as history culture and community in fact the courtyard was a sanctuary it was a microclimate and hundreds of birds dwelled in this climbing tree that was planted and nurtured by my mother and you know throughout the years we always found nests you see the courtyard lives its own life not for the purpose of the house but the house lives for the purpose of the courtyard for us the plants the trees the birds the courtyard were the soul of our house leaving home or the nest as they say was a major milestone in my life I took off to pursue my studies and architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design in 97 and thinking that I want to come back to Jordan and open and start my own architectural practice my experience began with being alone in a new and unfamiliar environment being out of the context of home was frightening at first and I felt a sense of loss and separation there was a reversal and the notion of where home is or what home is in Jordan I knew my home so well but now my home became a place I visited a vessel of my memories a feeling I felt homesick like a nomad I was in transience but I knew that I had to adjust to my new life during the spring term of sophomore year in 2000 I took an advance studio that challenged us to examine and invent fabric architecture for the use of an emergency shelter for disaster relief the objective was to design a transportable structure that served several functions and provided shelter in a variety of weather conditions we were asked to contemplate an idea that does not yet exist and to construct a story within a story and little did I know that my experience during that studio to would be transformative I began my exploration by describing and analyzing fetal development in the womb and the process of giving birth as a cycle of growth this metaphor was the essence of my inspiration leading me to think about ideas related to skin structure and form it directed me towards designing an architectural system that expanded and that moved and that had the potential to become a shelter as disaster is inevitably temporary and consonant in its movement a shelter must be transient because disaster implies the breakdown of communities a shelter must rebuild social interaction because disaster destroys the familiar environment a shelter must transform over what often remains and these are the qualities upon which I both figuratively and literally chose to base my shelter and think about shelter you see architecture was a new language to me and I felt I needed to find my own interpretation what was my connection to the spaces that inspired me to the ones that have shaped and impacted us in a specific way I thought about home and the theatrics of our house like the courtyard that we lived for and that lived its own life I realized that architecture is a reflection of our cultural values and a home is a model to understanding our connection with the universe a home is a vessel through which we perceive our place in this world after graduating from college I returned back to Jordan and traveled again travel to many places around the world and worked on various projects and in different fields art architecture cultural production fashion and so on and along the way I collected objects that I found meaning in and in 2010 I returned to Jordan you know feeling completely lost and not knowing what I wanted to do and so I decided to start my own studio and focus on the process of making my studio a new home a home of my ideas my studio space is a vessel of memories that is in constant motion and the space and the objects are both performative organizing and reorganizing my studio space and the last five years has allowed me to see a clear relationship between the objects I collected and the context and the ideas that formed fragments of my history and expressed where I come from people places and stories at my studio I spent hours actually all I do with my studio is make models and make and make as a way to deeply explore the connections of or the the rhythms of my past and find ways to link them to my future the first project that emerged from my studio was inspired by a rug that was given to me by my grandmother hand-woven by my great-grandmother in Jordan rugs are still woven on traditional ground looms using stone sticks and other available material historically women were charged with weaving tents out of the hair of gold or the wool of sheep and who also had had to erect and pack them up but today with nomadism becoming a phenomenon of the past and weaving as a way of life quickly vanishing nomadic tribes leave the desert for a more settled urban environment but the handmade objects of our past hold within them our collective traditions and a tangible form of memory and so my design the chandelier pays tribute to this fading skill and recognises all the woman who used weaving as a form of self-expression in 2013 I participated in a competition that asked us to define motion through a design that responds to various issues in daily life in relation to motion and provides solutions during that time the Zaatari refugee camp was being set up in Jordan to host a large population of Syrian refugees and I had only seen and heard about Zachary on TV and with a short time I had for designing my memory took me back to that advanced studio that had asked us to design an emergency shelter for disaster relief I designed a tent that uses a special folding structural fabric basically absorbs the sun's energy and becomes energy independent so it provides the necessities of basic life like electricity like water comfort but more importantly the design has the social potential to not only be an adequate shelter but a dignified shelter and help weave communities together as such this project weaving a home exemplifies my ongoing search for the definition of home shelter represents the most essential boundary that protects and separates us from the exterior world a home is a sanctuary in and by itself a space that allows us to heal to exist and to dream of our future but most importantly to be ourselves I visited the Zaatari refugee camp right after a strong snowstorm and I spoke to many refugees about the issues that they were facing their challenges and their needs many tents had collapsed and other tents had flooded and there was a general problem with you know sanitation hygiene and no solutions to heat water some refugees grew their own food and others created their own sanitation system and the actions of self sustenance were evident everywhere and it was clear that this temporary camp was soon becoming a permanent settlement I left that day from the camp and couldn't help but reflect on my own home my own childhood I thought about that day when I walked into our living room and saw our future home on the side table and as I walked through the rows of tents I imagined this model of her exit camp and some corporate office completely detached from what is happening on the ground with some group of people deciding that this is the best solution is this the best that we can do is there a solution where the tent could become more than a shelter where it could become a home a community over the past few years I've taken on the challenge of being an architect and this time of humanitarian crisis and my tent is still in progress it's still developing the tent has been the model to not only understand but to also serve my community my projects are still ongoing growing and expanding in awareness I've always been interested in our experience in space events that are orchestrated by architectural and that is preserved in our memory how can architecture participate in the empowerment and advancement of social interaction and cultural progression how can the displaced build their own homes and gain a sense of their own agency and control over their own environment my purpose is to go back to the beginning a birth and a rebirth the challenge is my imagination through design and creativity this has been my journey so far my pattern is my creative process it starts at home the origin of everything the womb the courtyard the nest the origin of memory of culture and innovation home is the center of my life and continues to inspire me it's the place that I may depart from but to which I always return to thank you [Applause] [Music]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 25,781

Rating: 4.8304238 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Design, Activism, Architecture, Art, Big problems, Cause, Cities, Community, Connection, Creation, Creativity, Culture, Developing World, Disaster relief, Family, Global issues, Hope, Human Rights, Immigration, Impact, Industrial design, Initiative, Innovation, Invention, Life, Local issues, Materials, Natural disaster, Population, Poverty, Rebuilding, Refugee, Simplicity, Social Change, Society, Sustainability, Urban Areas, War

Id: tYFzy1_EmBM

Length: 16min 55sec (1015 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 05 2018