“A Visual Method for User Modifications in Climat de France”

This dissertation offers a visual and computational analysis of the residents’ modifications in Climat de France in order to expose the use of space and its temporality in relation to the socio-cultural factors of its users. Climat de France is an important case besides its architectural value as a colonial modernist project, with all the residents’ modifications it holds additional value as an inhabited space. It showcases an important example of how design intentions have been invalidated by the residents in their use of space and making it their own. Homemaking is an extensive field of study in social science, I refer to this literature in order to ground residents’ modifications with the concepts of self expression and making oneself home. I distinguish the design context and the user context in order to identify the duality of Climat de France and explore their interrelation in shaping each other. I introduce the user context in order to understand the use of space and the temporality of domestic spaces as manifested in residents’ modifications. There is much to learn from the continuity and discontinuity of the socio-cultural acts and idealized forms, especially from the point of view of sustainable environments and reuse of the existing structures. In the case of reuse and renovation of the existing ensembles, the user context holds an important potential that should not be disregarded. The exploration of residents’ modifications and their space making patterns does not only help us understand the temporality of inhabited spaces but also holds the potential to develop new perspectives and methodologies for renovating the existing architectural heritage in relation with the user context.