Torture Machine House
Harvard Graduate School of Design
Living Single, Living Together / Core I Studio
Instructor: Ritchie Yao
Fall 2021
This speculative duplex is the spatialization of a fraught relationship between two residents. It shadows Robert Eggers’s The Lighthouse (2019) screenplay. If Dafoe and Pattinson are enchanted by the roaring light at the top of the spire, then the actors (one by land, one by sea) of this duplex are enchanted by the desire to see the opposing landscape (land, sea). The double helix stair, here presented as an alien chrome figure, is inserted into two entangled brick skeletons. The duplex becomes a machine of torture in that it seduces each actor to ascend the stair with the hopes of getting a glimpse of the other side - but this dream falls apart at the penthouse.
