Somewhere between connection and isolation1
A habitat was originally used in botany to define the interdependent relationship between a plant and soil. Over the 20th century, the meaning of the word evolved to describe how humans organize and populate the environment in which they live.
The city we live in is based on network connectivity. Shaping a place to make it habitable means connecting it to the networks that supply water, energy, and heat, and in so doing, gradually protecting ourselves from the outside world, extracting ourselves from the environment.
Une dépendance technique aux réseaux se substitue ainsi aux liens d’interdépendance entre un lieu ses habitants.
It's all a question of defining the boundaries between these worlds, between permeability to the environment and connection to networks. How can we design a boundary that both ensures exchanges with the outside world and allows residents to disconnect from this technical grip?
The habitable always refers to a utopia, be it a hygienist, ecologist... In contrast to utopia, which imposes itself on the place, the habitable, in my opinion, is a synthesis between a projection of the imaginary and a reuse of the existing.
Topique means relating to a given place.
I'll call Topique a typology of objects or spaces that address the inhabitants first and foremost, that make a sign, and are born of a movement originating in the place.
A topique is an autonomous object, disconnected from the network and connected to the environment.
A topique expresses the right balance between a flow (rain, wind, etc.) and the human action of using it, capturing it, storing it, filtering it, and then redistributing it.
1 Text from the exhibition "Letting the dust settle" at the CCA Kitakyushu, Japan, January 2012.