Nils Skarsten

The project conceptualises the construction of the set within the saga as a mode of constructing domesticity itself. The films produced here further emphasise this symbiosis. The film on the left is a pre-visualisation of sets due to be constructed. It operates as a way of illustrating the domestic spaces, props, and moments of inhabitation as they would appear to the viewer. The film on the right acts to emphasise the nature that these sets and episodes are a constructed reality that themselves influences those watching. Through this, on the one hand, we understand the set as a tool used to immerse the viewer in a narrative; on the other hand, the set is exposed as a performance device and constructed artefact used to seduce the viewer into adopting a series of positions.

Each future family structure offered within this saga demands a revision of its domestic space to enable alternative modes of kinship. The project imagines these revisions as consequences of social, political, economic, legislative or environmental factors on the home, and thus the family. As such, the project advocates for a far broader understanding of the scope of influence of architecture within the realm of family life. It calls for a reframing of housing not as an object of financial speculation or delivery, but rather a microcosm of broader societal values. 

In this sense, whilst the saga of the project is sited within the British context, its ambitions are far broader in scope. The purpose of its spatial explorations is make plausible to the possibility of alternative domestic situations. The saga here is both as a tool of representation, and equally a methodology, operating as a machine for producing new domestic relationships and resultant family structures through generating alternative architectural typologies.

The methodology explores the potential of serialised narrative to both expose the affects of western domesticity, and offer productive alternatives. Serialism here is not iterative, arriving at a just domesticity, rather, it is a tool for unpacking many possible futures of domesticity—be they subjugating or emancipating. These scenarios are posited in response to the question: How would the family unit differ if…? Each answer offered provokes a more or less fundamental change in the way western families and their domestic spaces can operate. Each set is the site of an episode and each episode explores a fundamentally different family structure—created either by external conditions or in response to posed societal injustices.

The scenarios explored here vary greatly in scope but are predominately conceived of as bottom-up revisions of existing domestic space or design of new domestic space to best suit the demands of a top-down legislative, political or economic shift. They range from exploring the effects of widening class divide in the wake of cost of living inflation, to nationalised housebuilding, to generational cohabitation to environmental nomadism.

The project utilises the saga as a mediator between alternative domesticities and the wider public. Through a methodology of serialism, deeply entrenched notions of family and domesticity can be diluted and reimagined through wilder speculation. These speculations result in a form of serialised architecture that can uniquely and effectively imagine novel spatial strategies of domesticity. Through the saga, one is exposed to the possibility of alternative family structures and can begin to understand how they might be actualised through space and behaviour.

The televisual saga here has the unique position of having the ability to be truly propositional and equally public serving. The narratives of the saga can emphasise shifts in attitudes to wider societal issues and how they play out within the domestic context. They can either be emblematic of an existing context or speculating on a fictional context; simply by exposing issues emerging within society, television can trigger landmark shifts in opinion and behaviour.

The project advocates for the realm of televisual media as a means of advancing the acceptance of these alternative domesticities as spaces of becoming. Within this saga, some scenarios embrace moments of mundanity to illustrate how existing space can be adapted to accommodate alternative structures; some are more evidently divergent in an effort to amplify familial and spatial differences. Many of these scenarios exist already in varying forms and in various contexts. However, I argue that they haven’t been dressed up, rehearsed, amplified, and mediatised within the public conscience.