Concavitude: a modular armchair prototype at AcrossRCA (London, UK), 2017.

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Collaborative project with Yara Boulos and Stephanie Siu, tutored by Alex Parry, Sofya Chibisguleva, and Sadie Edginton

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"A living creature fills an empty refuge, images inhabit, and all corners are haunted, if not inhabited."
Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space (1957)

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Developed during the AcrossRCA programme, Concavitude was born from a collective reflection on rupture, inhabitation, and common space. The workshop Building Ruptures: Re-imagining Common Spaces invited participants to design modular elements that could activate the liminal zones of the Dyson and Woo Buildings — thresholds, corridors, or corners where social life intermittently unfolds.

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The project rethinks the politics of spatial occupation and the architectures of collectivity, proposing functional “ruptures” that question how architectural space regulates behaviour and interaction. Drawing on early 20th-century collectivist architecture and on Gaston Bachelard’s phenomenology of space, Concavitude explores the relationship between inside and outside, intimacy and exposure, isolation and togetherness.

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The resulting prototype takes the form of a modular armchair, conceived as a 1:1 inhabitable volume — a refuge for retreat within the public realm. Constructed from a trapezoidal geometry, the seat leaves only its shortest side open, while the others rise disproportionately high to form a rough, anonymous shell. The structure’s concave interior invites bodily inhabitation, while its convex exterior remains deliberately mute — a tactile boundary between protection and withdrawal.

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As a single unit, Concavitude acts as a micro-architecture for pause and contemplation. When combined, its modular geometry allows for multiple spatial constellations — forming clusters, corridors, or enclosed social islands.

Between Bachelard’s “inhabited corners” and the architectural negotiation of shared environments, Concavitude reflects on how even the smallest spatial gestures can reframe our collective and intimate experiences of space.

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Designers: Riccardo Rizzetto, Yara Boulos, Stephanie Siu
Tutors: Alex Parry, Sofya Chibisguleva, Sadie Edginton.

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