Hom Sieoteo is a prototype of a home designed for Next Home (Seoul, 2017)*, conceived as a domestic theatre where day-to-day fictions can be activated.

Our every day lives are a sort of soap opera. Therefore, this "domestic black box" is designed as a transformable stage, enabled for the choreography, rehearsal, action and fiction of daily life. Its spaces are equipped to intensify the performing experience of the users’ bodies, to test and question their social roles, to rehearse their shared imageries, to test their subjectivity and to explore the potentiality of the ordinary. 

This project hinges on a dual strategy: on the one hand, a simple distribution optimises the functionality of this small 50m2 space. On the other hand, the walls, ceilings and floors are fitted with a series of devices that allow multiple domestic configurations: sliding panels, hatches, secret spaces, fold-down mechanisms, furniture that hangs from the ceiling and are actuated by mechanisms, etc, that allow dwellers to deploy different domestic settings in the apartment. Hom Sieoteo is configured as a performing black box, a ‘domestic theatre’ where dwellers are both the public and the actors, the spectators and the performers at the same time.

Hom sieoteo integrates a series of devices that reveal or hide the everyday props and gear. Thus, a swing, a table with some picnic benches, a hammock to chill under some fans or a disco ball can suddenly drop down from the ceiling. The floor is fitted with a pop-up tea room, a tatami, a dressing table, some secret trapdoors which house something unknown, or even a swimming pool that, all of a sudden, may flood the living room. The sliding panels transform the living room favouring the versatility of the space. Lighting and control of atmospheric conditions allow different environments to be configured.

Domestic spaces are part of the network of spaces that condition the construction of our subjectivity during our life. We imagine Seoul’s tomorrow’s homes as domestic theatres: inhabitable black boxes that allow experimentation with oneself, dressing up and fictionalising one’s own life, trying and testing life scripts, playing (in both its meanings: gaming and performing) with identity.

* NEXT HOME 2017 is a crowd research developed by architects and designers around the world who were invited to research on the critical relationship between our living realities and the spatial typologies onto Seoul’s tomorrow.

1. One space, many spaces. Hom sieoteo is a transformable space that allows different configurations to be deployed to adapt to everyday life.

Experiments with oneself.

2. Black box. These transformable technologies work like stage: a versatile device that turns the living room into a small domestic theatre (#domestictheater), a black box where life takes place in a new stage every day.

Every house, a theatre.

3. Black-boxing to experiment. The processes are unblack-boxed (#openblackbox), but the spaces are black-boxed (in a theatrical sense) to rehearse, test, try out and prototype the experiences, habits, relationships and day-to-day life.

Every day, a rehearsal.

4. System adaptations. This project is part of a series on transformable domestic spaces (#livinginablackbox) developed by the elii architecture office. In all cases, the system is adapted to the tastes, the way of living and the collective imagination of its inhabitants. If our lives can vary so much, shouldn’t the spaces where we live be more flexible?

Adaptable spaces.

• Architects:
• elii - Uriel Fogué + Eva Gil + Carlos Palacios
• Team Leader:
• elii - Lucía Fernández 
• Team:
• elii - Lucía Fernández + Ana López
• Developer:
• Next Home - http://ocdi.info/
• Area:
• 50m2
• Date:
• 2017-18
• Location:
• Seúl