This book ‘deconstructs’ a single recently constructed house located in Seattle, WA, in an attempt to recover its backstory. The information is presented along four vectors – atoms, labors, sources and ingredients.
Though remarkably detailed, the A House Deconstructed contends that a huge proportion of what we ‘know’ about the house is unknowable, not because our epistemological instruments aren’t strong enough or calibrated precisely enough, but because things themselves are indeterminate, uncertain.
This begs the question about agency. If we are to critique our profession and even improve some of its claims about Sustainability, then we must develop a more robust understanding of the building industry and the sourcing and making of materials. We must even develop a stronger awareness of the history of atoms and how architecture brings that history into a remarkable focus.