The project [Home at Arsenale] responds to Biennale curator Alejandro Aravena’s title Reporting from the Front by addressing the topics of home and dwelling as current critical social and environmental issues. The curators conceived a 1:1 site-specific inhabitable spatial wooden structure, an indoor pavilion - an abstract compact home operating as a curated library for exploring the concepts of home and dwelling during the Biennale Architettura 2016 and beyond. Challenging the private/public dichotomy within the dwelling domain the project suggests a transformation of the private home into a possible temporary public home environment.

The installation inhabits and reacts to the given space in Arsenale with a spatial structure containing a curated collection of books and objects of domesticity suggestive of the domestic realm.

A 1:1 spatial structure is generated by a site-specific system of wooden bookshelves. The ‘low-tech and low-res’ approach organizes generic horizontal and vertical bookshelf elements into a complex site-specific spatial system reacting to the material as well as immaterial context and defining all required cavities of the abstract home/curated library.

The material definition of the installation reflects the historical linking of Venice and Slovenia, since wood from the Karst region was used extensively for the foundations of Venice. Wood also represents Slovenia’s primary resource and therefore opens up its underused potential as a construction material of domestic spaces.

Invited architects, artists, critics and curators from various backgrounds are participating with their selection of some 10 books addressing the notions of home and dwelling to share their experience and expertise ‘from their fronts’ in order to build the curated library of collective knowledge. Ultimately, the installation with around 300 books will relocate to the Museum of Architecture and Design in Ljubljana, to be continually available for public use.

Credits: - dekleva gregoric architects - Tina Gregoric - dekleva gregoric architects - Martina Marcan - MAO (Producer) - Matevz Celik - dekleva gregoric architects - Aljosa Dekleva - Konzola (Structural engineer) - Luka Pavlovcic - dekleva gregoric architects - Vid Zabel - dekleva gregoric architects - Silvia Susanna - dekleva gregoric architects - Naia Sinde - dekleva gregoric architects - Lea Kovic