ACT I — FOUNDATIONS#

Why and how to think about Usso architecture#

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1. Guiding principles#

The Usso habitat (a contraction of the French words usage and soin) rests on guiding principles: a way of thinking about dwelling from real conditions, and then deriving the right response from them.

A fundamental reversal#

In Usso, use comes before care.

Here, "use" also includes rest: sleeping, recovering, doing nothing, withdrawing, digesting, being in silence.

We do not begin by deciding what would be "virtuous" in the abstract. We begin by observing and describing:

• everyday gestures,
• rhythms (day, week, seasons),
• bodily and nervous-system constraints,
• non-human presences,
• the externalities produced (water, heat, noise, materials).

Care is not a moral add-on: it is the architectural consequence of uses understood with precision.

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What care encompasses in Usso#

Care concerns:

• humans (bodies, rest, fatigue, relationships, mental load),
• non-humans (plants, animals, micro-organisms),
• material continuities (water, heat, air, materials),
• time (maintenance, aging, patina, appropriation).

In other words: use is the starting point; care is the form it takes.

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Structuring principles#

1. Start from real uses before any form Describe gestures, rhythms, and constraints before drawing.
2. Let care emerge as the response Care follows from analysis; it is not added afterward.
3. Close loops rather than create breaks Water, heat, materials, and uses should be able to return to the place without fragmentation.
4. Make things circulate rather than contain them Water, air, heat, and people need legible paths.
5. Rely on physics before technology Gravity, inertia, orientation, and geometry do most of the work; technology remains minimal.
6. Reduce maintenance through design Less vigilance, fewer invisible failures, less mental load.
7. Respect human circles Intimate, household, collective: clear, chosen, legible scales.
8. Share without imposing The common is offered and attractive; it is never forced.
9. Welcome living systems as an architectural component Soil, plants, and microclimate are conceived as organs of the built environment.
10. Acknowledge temporality Transformation, patina, repair, and appropriation are built in.
11. Integrate modernity in a situated, rhythmic way Digital tools are localized and deliberate, not diffuse.
12. Allow cultural expression without saturation Art, science, and culture move through the place without crowding it.

These principles form the backbone of the document and guide every choice that follows.

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2. Usso methodology — How to design a Usso place#

The Usso habitat is neither a style nor a catalog of solutions. It is a design methodology that applies at every scale: a room, a dwelling, a building, a hamlet.

It begins from a simple observation: a place is first a system of uses (human and non-human) crossed by flows (water, heat, air, materials, attention).

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2.1 Step 1 — Describe uses (without idealizing)#

We begin with a concrete, situated description:

• real everyday gestures,
• rhythms (day / week / seasons),
• bodily constraints (fatigue, rest, mobility, nervous system),
• non-human presences,
• the externalities produced (water, heat, noise, materials).

Rest is treated as a use in its own right, with its own conditions and conflicts of use.

At this stage: no form, no equipment, no aesthetic.

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2.2 Step 2 — Identify tensions#

We map what calls for a response:

• conflicts of use (crossings, frictions, intrusions),
• zones of wear (materials under strain, trapped moisture),
• excessive maintenance (constant vigilance, endless cleaning),
• breaks in continuity (lost heat, blocked air, stagnant water),
• signs of overload (noise, fatigue, confused spatial cues).

These tensions show where care is needed.

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2.3 Step 3 — Define care as a functional response#

Care is not a moral intention added to the project. It takes the form of precise responses:

• care for bodies (less effort, more real comfort, legible cues),
• care for living systems (water-compatible systems, breathable soils, stable microclimates),
• care for materials (acceptance of water, controlled patina, repairability),
• care for continuities (bringing things back to the place rather than exporting them).

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2.4 Step 4 — Activate physics and geometry first#

Before technology, rely on:

• gravity and slopes,
• inertia and mass,
• capillarity and drainage,
• natural ventilation,
• continuous forms (curves, coved transitions),
• plant life as an active agent.

Technology becomes secondary, often minimal.

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2.5 Step 5 — Let the right form emerge#

Architectural form is the consequence:

• of uses that have been understood,
• of care that has been defined,
• of physical laws that have been activated.

Each Usso project is singular, but it rests on a shared logic of dwelling.

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2.6 Axiom#

In Usso architecture, form never comes before use. Care is not an ideal: it is a consequence.

The dwelling becomes an organism—coherent, repairable, legible—rather than an assembly of equipment.

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2.7 Clarification — What the Usso approach rejects#

The Usso method is also defined by what it rejects:

• designing from standardized objects,
• answering a need with a "reflex" piece of equipment,
• confusing function with device,
• optimizing one room at the expense of the whole system,
• freezing uses into fixed forms.

In Usso, a need does not automatically call for an object. It is uses, their interactions, and their externalities that orient the design—sometimes allowing a device to emerge, and sometimes making it unnecessary.

This position is neither ideological nor ascetic: it opens up a freedom of form, improves long-term adaptability, and durably reduces maintenance and mental load.

The house is therefore conceived as a coherent organism, capable of welcoming, transforming, and regulating uses over time.

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3. Overall organization of the place#

This chapter describes an overall grammar: relationships of use between spaces, rather than an imposed form.

3.1 A hamlet rather than a single house#

The Usso reference model is an articulated ensemble:

• Central common house: the social and cultural heart, but also the place where everything requiring robustness is concentrated (water, machines, storage, cleaning, repair).
• Individual dwelling units: rest, intimacy, gentle autonomy—simple places, not over-equipped.
• Intermediate spaces: transitions and social calibration (withdrawal, encounter, occasional activities) without heavy duplication.

This layout avoids both isolation and social overload, and durably reduces maintenance by pooling what is costly.

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3.2 Variations: apartment building, urban housing, individual dwelling#

The Usso hamlet is an ideal form, but neither exclusive nor mandatory: Usso is defined by a way of thinking about use and care that can be transferred to different contexts.

Clarification note (vocabulary convention)

• Common house refers to a collective space (or a set of collective spaces), whatever its size or shape.
• Hamlet refers to a group of dwellings arranged around one or more collective spaces.

These terms describe relationships of use, not fixed architectural forms.

Collective housing and urban apartment buildings#

In dense urban settings, the common house can become:

• a shared base (a shared level),
• or common rooms distributed throughout the building.

What is shared first is what concentrates:

• machines (laundry),
• storage (pantry),
• transformation (shared kitchen),
• noise and maintenance.

Courtyards, rooftops, gardens, and inhabited landings then become supports for intermediate spaces.

House or individual apartment#

Even without organized collective life, Usso remains relevant:

• design through use (rather than equipment),
• reduced maintenance through form,
• repairable, breathable materials,
• a clear differentiation of human circles (intimate, household, opening outward).

The principle remains the same: make uses legible, and concentrate what is heavy (water, machines, storage) whenever possible—at the scale of the dwelling or through nearby forms of sharing.

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ACT II — DWELLING#

Spaces, rhythms, and human experiences#

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4. Contextual conditioning — when space becomes a signal#

Human beings do not inhabit space neutrally. Through repetition, they learn to associate place cues (light, posture, sounds, objects, smells, paths) with uses—and with the inner state that accompanies them.

This phenomenon, called contextual conditioning, is simple:

• a place frequently associated with effort becomes a place of activation,
• a place frequently associated with rest becomes a place of calm,
• a place frequently associated with interaction becomes a place of availability.

These associations are rarely conscious. They work like an implicit language: the body understands before it analyzes.

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4.1 When housing blurs thresholds#

In contemporary housing, uses tend to overlap:

• working on the sofa,
• a screen in the bedroom,
• meals eaten in passage spaces,
• rest confused with distraction.

In the short term, this can seem flexible. In the long term, it creates a problem of legibility: places send contradictory signals.

The cost is not moral, it is practical:

• difficulty switching off,
• the feeling of staying "on alert",
• rest becoming less accessible,
• more fragile sleep.

Space then becomes a subtle factor of exhaustion—not by intention, but through confusion.

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4.2 Dominant uses, compatibilities, and cues#

The Usso habitat does not seek to isolate functions like a rulebook. It seeks to make the habitat legible.

One principle is enough:

Each space carries a dominant use and coherent cues.

A dominant use is not an exclusive use. Some uses coexist naturally; others interfere with each other.

• the bedroom privileges rest (and everything that makes it simple),
• a workspace structures effort (and limits how far it spreads),
• a place for meals supports grounding and relationship,
• a daytime retreat space allows a pause without stimulation.

What matters is not rigid separation. It is the coherence of signals: the body understands effortlessly what is possible here.

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4.3 Caring without prescribing#

In this approach, architecture does not correct the individual. It does not prescribe behaviors.

It acts upstream:

• by reducing contradictions,
• by clarifying transitions,
• by providing repeated cues.

Care is not a program. It is a design effect: a habitat that removes confusion, and therefore mental load.

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4.4 Principle#

Space is a language. The body listens to it even before the mind formulates it.

Integrating contextual conditioning into architecture means recognizing a simple fact: repeated uses create the signal of the place.

The Usso challenge is therefore to make that signal right, restrained, and coherent—so that rest, effort, and relationship become accessible uses again.

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5. Intermediate spaces and human circles#

5.1 Three circles#

1. Intimate (bedroom)
2. Household (private living room)
3. Broader collective (common house)

5.2 Intermediate spaces#

• Satellite common rooms
• Covered yards, terraces, courtyards
• Small secondary warm rooms

These spaces can be appropriated temporarily, without heavy duplication.

6. The common house: collective organs#

6.1 Shared kitchen and dining room#

• Main place for food transformation
• Robust, washable, repairable materials
• Large central table
• Direct link with pantry, kitchen garden, and compost

6.2 Shared laundry#

• Pooling of machines
• Reduced noise and maintenance
• Possible use of rainwater
• Graywater integrated into the water cycle

6.3 Shared pantry#

• Dry storage, cool storage, and preserves
• Collective management of resources
• Interface between production, kitchen, and seasonality

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7. A situated digital and cultural space#

7.1 Principle#

Digital modernity is concentrated, rhythmic, and situated, never diffuse.

7.2 Functions#

• Standing desks for individual work
• Simple booths for calls
• Projector for talks (daytime) and films (evening)
• The ability to welcome people from outside the place

7.3 Temporality#

• Morning: focused work
• Midday: exchanges / talks
• Afternoon: light work
• Evening: collective screenings

Digital life becomes a temporal flow, not permanent background noise.

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8. Individual dwelling units#

8.1 Role#

Individual dwellings are places of rest and household life, not complete mini-houses.

8.2 Essential spaces#

• Bedroom (rest)
• Living room (shared presence at the scale of the household)
• Bathroom
• Minimal eating area

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9. The bedroom: an organ of recovery#

9.1 Single use#

• Sleep
• Withdraw
• Regulate the nervous system

9.2 Principles#

• Cool temperature (16–18°C)
• Real darkness
• Slow-moving, living air
• Breathable materials (earth, wood, wool)
• Very few objects
• Minimal electricity

The bedroom is a gentle cave, protective and quiet.

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10. The private living room: presence without obligation#

10.1 Role#

• Be together on a small scale
• Talk, read, be silent
• Warm the body

10.2 Heating#

• Multifunction thermal-mass heating:
  • radiant heat
  • heated bench
  • thermal-mass wall
  • drying

We heat people, not air.

10.3 Atmosphere#

• No central television
• Natural light first
• Low furniture, used sparingly
• Good acoustics

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11. The individual eating space#

11.1 Principle#

Each household must be able to eat at home, without necessarily owning a full kitchen.

11.2 Minimal functions#

• Reheat
• Assemble
• Cut
• Drink hot / cold
• Eat seated

11.3 Architecture#

• Kitchen nook or short linear unit
• Sink
• Small hot plate
• Limited storage
• Dependence on the shared pantry

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12. Cold without omnipresent fridges or freezers#

12.1 Rethinking the fridge#

• Cool pantry (8–14°C)
• Ventilated food cupboard
• Seasonal winter cold
• Small targeted shared cold storage

12.2 Rethinking the freezer#

• Occasional use (as a buffer)
• Pooling
• Transformation afterward (preserves, drying, fermentation)

Cold becomes an architectural and seasonal resource.

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ACT III — CARE#

Physics, living systems, relationships, and continuities#

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13. Water and bathrooms: living matter#

13.1 Principle#

Water must not stagnate or be enclosed: it must circulate.

13.2 Design#

• Breathable materials (lime, stone, wood)
• Gentle slopes and drainage
• Natural ventilation
• Built-in furniture

13.3 Cycle#

• Water used → filtered → plants / soil

12.4 Technical management of water through design (anti-stagnation)#

Water should be conceived as a continuous flow, never as something to contain. Healthy design aims to prevent any stagnation through gravity, form, and the choice of materials, before resorting to technology.

Cardinal principle#

Every drop of water must have an obvious, continuous, downward path.

If you cannot answer the question "where does this water go?" immediately, the design needs to be rethought.

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1. Gravity before all else#

• Low but constant slopes (1–2%) on every surface in contact with water
• No perfectly horizontal surface near wet zones
• Continuity of slopes all the way to drainage, with no break or threshold

Gravity ensures slow but permanent flow, preventing hesitant or trapped water.

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2. Hydraulically favorable forms#

• Avoid inside 90° corners
• Favor curves, coves, and rounded transitions
• Avoid recesses, rabbets, and accumulations of joints

Curves are not decorative: they are hydraulic solutions.

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3. Sinks and basins#

• Deep basins, edges sloping inward
• Rims that return water toward the basin
• Sinks integrated into a mineral mass (stone, lime)
• Joints reduced to the strict minimum

Under the sink:

• visible trap
• ventilated space
• washable and slightly sloped floor

Any leak must be immediately visible and dry quickly.

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4. Showers and bathrooms#

• Walk-in showers
• An overall floor slope, not only toward a single drain
• Long channel drain or extended drainage zone
• No local hollow or threshold trapping water

The bathroom is designed as a ventilated wet area, not as a sealed box.

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5. Materials compatible with water#

Preferred materials:

• stone
• terracotta
• lime concrete
• lime plasters
• well-ventilated solid wood

These materials accept water, dry quickly, and do not rot.

Materials to avoid near water:

• drywall
• MDF
• chipboard
• laminates
• sealed plastics

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6. Vapor-open, water-draining#

A space that is too airtight traps moisture.

The rule is:

• let vapor pass,
• evacuate liquid water,
• encourage natural drying.

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7. Ventilation through architecture#

• openable windows
• height differences (stack effect)
• high and low openings
• doors that let air circulate

Mechanical ventilation becomes secondary and occasional.

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8. Visible and accessible networks#

• avoid complex concealed water lines
• favor ventilated chases
• keep sensitive points accessible

Water must be able to be seen, repaired, and dried.

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9. River logic#

Like a mountain stream, domestic water should:

• flow,
• oxygenate,
• meet compatible materials,
• never stagnate.

The house thus reproduces a natural cycle on a small scale.

14. Heat and coolness: thermal comfort through design#

14.1 Fundamental principle#

Thermal comfort depends first on bodily sensation, not on the artificial stabilization of air temperature.

The aim is to heat or cool people, through radiation, inertia, and the slowness of exchanges, rather than volumes.

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14.2 Thermal inertia as the central regulator#

Inertia slows thermal variations across the whole year.

Key materials:

• raw earth
• stone
• lime concrete
• thick walls
• masonry heater

These elements store heat when it is available and release it slowly, while absorbing excess heat in summer.

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14.3 Winter: gentle, localized warmth#

• Passive solar gains (south / southeast orientation)
• Openings sized for the low winter sun
• Heat-collecting thermal-mass walls and floors
• Radiant heating (masonry heater, heated benches, heated walls)

A thermal gradient is accepted:

• warmer living rooms,
• tempered circulation areas,
• cooler bedrooms.

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14.4 Summer: coolness without air conditioning#

• Fixed solar protection (roof overhangs, sun-breakers)
• Deciduous plant shade
• North facades with few openings
• Inertia that preserves coolness

Night ventilation clears accumulated heat:

• high and low openings,
• stack effect,
• slow air currents.

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14.5 Shoulder seasons: a breathable house#

The house operates in passive mode most of the time:

• little or no heating,
• little need for solar protection,
• fine adjustments through use (opening, closing, occupying spaces differently).

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14.6 Microclimates and inhabitants' choices#

Rather than a uniform temperature, the house offers a diversity of situations:

• heated bench,
• cool wall,
• north room,
• shaded zone,
• winter garden.

Residents naturally choose where to place themselves.

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14.7 Thermal design principles (summary)#

1. Orient living rooms to the south / southeast
2. Place cool rooms to the north
3. Introduce thermal mass at the heart of the house
4. Favor radiation over convection
5. Create legible thermal gradients
6. Protect from the sun before trying to cool
7. Ventilate at night rather than cool during the day
8. Multiply microclimates rather than aim for uniformity
9. Let inhabitants adjust through use
10. Accept slow variations as normal

Thermal comfort becomes a lived quality: stable, gentle, and low-energy, coherent with the architecture of care and use.

15. Making built room for indoor plant life#

The integration of plant life indoors does not rely on potted plants added afterward, but on architectural spaces designed to welcome living systems.

The principle is to replace the decorative object with soil, volume, and microclimate.

Fundamental principles#

• Offer a sufficient volume of soil (free roots, thermal mass)
• Ensure natural drainage without stagnation
• Guarantee stable natural light
• Allow air circulation
• Make maintenance easy through architecture (access, washable floor)

You do not place a plant where a human would not feel at ease either.

Typologies of built spaces for plants#

• Integrated plant niches: volumes inside wall thicknesses, drained, breathable
• Indoor masonry planters: architectural planters that also serve as benches or dividers
• Indoor in-ground garden: soil connected to the natural ground, light well, micro-ecosystem
• Planter boundaries: soft limits between spaces without hard partitioning
• Winter garden / inhabited greenhouse: a space designed primarily for plant life, also serving as a thermal and social buffer

These arrangements replace pots and turn plant life into a structural component of the place.

Rooms to favor#

• Living room and living spaces (daily presence, light)
• Entry / vestibule (indoor-outdoor transition zone)
• Common house (shared spaces, work, welcome)
• Winter garden when there is one

Bedrooms remain restrained; plant life is limited there.

Converging human / plant cycles#

• Water: rainwater and clean graywater for irrigation, drainage toward soil or constructed wetland treatment
• Organic matter: green waste → compost → substrate → plants → return to the soil
• Heat: planter inertia, passive solar gain from the winter garden
• Air: gentle regulation of humidity and indoor atmosphere

Plant life thus becomes an actor in the cycles of the place, not a decorative element.

16. Closed loops#

• Water (rain, uses, constructed wetland treatment)
• Food / excreta (compost, soil)
• Heat (mass, inertia)
• Materials (repairable, biodegradable)
• Time (daily and seasonal rhythms)

17. Beauty, geometry, and proportions#

After the care given to materials and bodies, Usso architecture also takes care of the sensory and the symbolic.

17.1 Beauty as a dimension of care#

In the architecture of care and use, beauty is neither decorative nor ostentatious. It fully contributes to physical, emotional, and relational well-being.

A well-proportioned place soothes, slows down, and makes uses obvious without conscious effort. Beauty is understood here as a perceived rightness, felt before it is analyzed.

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17.2 Geometry and human perception#

Human beings are rhythmic, proportioned organisms. When a space respects certain geometric relationships:

• the eye settles,
• the body relaxes,
• movement becomes fluid,
• attention calms.

Geometry thus becomes a tool for regulating the nervous system, just like light, warmth, or acoustics.

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17.3 The golden ratio as a reference, not a dogma#

The golden ratio (≈ 1.618) is used as a reference for harmony, present in living systems and in many vernacular architectures.

It is never applied rigidly, but serves to:

• check proportions,
• adjust dimensions,
• correct imbalances.

One does not design "by the golden ratio": one observes whether proportions naturally move toward it.

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17.4 Proportions in interior architecture#

Proportions play a major role in:

• the dimensions of rooms (avoiding the strict square or excessive elongation),
• ceiling heights (variations depending on intimacy or collectivity),
• openings (doors, windows) with legible ratios,
• niches, benches, and alcoves, which offer resting places for eye and body.

A well-proportioned room often feels larger, calmer, and more welcoming than a bigger room that is poorly drawn.

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17.5 Proportions and exterior architecture#

Exterior beauty rests above all on:

• simple volumes,
• balanced relationships between solids and voids,
• a legible rhythm of openings,
• gentle asymmetry rather than rigid symmetry.

The roof, through its proportions and overhangs, plays a major protective and symbolic role.

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17.6 Geometry, use, and cycles#

A well-judged geometry often allows a double use:

• a gentle slope is both beautiful and hydraulic,
• a curve is both pleasant and functional,
• a well-placed mass is both thermal and harmonious.

Beauty emerges when form simultaneously supports use, care, and duration.

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17.7 Simple rules of proportion#

Without heavy mathematics:

• favor ratios close to 1:1.5 to 1:1.7,
• avoid abrupt breaks of scale,
• repeat simple modules,
• leave voids and breathing space,
• check spaces through bodily experience (walk, sit, look).

The body remains the best compass.

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17.8 Summary#

In this architecture, beauty is not an extra: it is a natural consequence of design attentive to use, proportions, and living systems.

It allows places to age with dignity, accept patina, and remain right over time.

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18. Art, science, and culture: an inhabited presence#

18.1 Fundamental principle#

Art, science, and culture are not conceived as decorative or institutional elements, but as living gestures that move through the place.

They are:

• situated (not everywhere),
• rhythmic over time,
• accessible to everyone (professionals, amateurs, children),
• sometimes ephemeral, sometimes lasting.

The place does not display art: it makes cultural gestures possible.

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18.2 Walls as supports for culture#

Some walls are explicitly designed to accept traces:

• be marked,
• receive works,
• evolve,
• be repainted or reworked.

Preferred materials:

• earth or lime plasters,
• raw wood,
• removable panels,
• canvases or reversible surfaces.

These walls become palimpsests, carrying memory and transformation.

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18.3 Wall typologies (an essential distinction)#

Not all walls have the same status:

1. Calm walls

   • bedrooms, spaces for rest
   • few or no images → visual and mental rest

2. Living walls

   • living rooms, circulation spaces, common house
   • works, drawings, texts, traces → shared culture

3. Free-expression walls

   • children, experimentation, ongoing projects
   • room for trying, playing, making mistakes

This differentiation avoids saturation and respects human rhythms.

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18.4 Ephemeral and lasting#

Ephemeral (fundamental)#

• drawings
• sketches
• scientific diagrams
• notes, posters
• temporary installations

Supports:

• repaintable walls
• mobile panels
• shared boards

The ephemeral frees expression and avoids the pressure of results.

Lasting (rare, chosen)#

• works that have found their place over time
• collective creations
• important traces of life in the place

The lasting emerges from use and duration, never from imposition.

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18.5 Where culture is expressed#

• Common house: cultural heart, evolving exhibitions, traces of events, talks
• Intermediate spaces: circulation areas, covered yards, satellite rooms, informal discoveries
• Dwellings: intimate expression, free, not imposed

The place keeps memory of what has been lived there without becoming a museum.

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18.6 Cultural cycles#

• Creation cycle: idea → attempt → exhibition → transformation → disappearance or integration
• Transmission cycle: child → adult → collective → visitor → return to the place
• Memory cycle: event → trace → partial forgetting → reinterpretation

Culture follows the same logic as water, heat, or living systems: it circulates.

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19. Conclusion#

The Usso habitat is neither a fixed model nor a utopia to reproduce. It does not propose an ideal form of dwelling, but a way of thinking and designing places, attentive to real uses, bodies, and the continuities of living systems.

Throughout this document, Usso has established itself as:

• an architecture of use, which starts from gestures, rhythms, and real constraints,
• an architecture of care, where care emerges as the right response to understood uses—including rest, relationship, duration, and care for the nervous system.

The Usso habitat considers the place as a coherent organism, capable:

• of welcoming water without trapping it,
• of storing and releasing heat without violence,
• of letting air, people, and uses circulate,
• of integrating plant life as an actor,
• of offering clear spatial cues to the body and the nervous system.

It rests on a simple conviction:

Space is never neutral. It can exhaust or support, confuse or soothe.

By giving uses legible places, differentiating without rigidifying, and letting form emerge from physics and living systems, the Usso habitat removes a significant share of the mental load, excessive maintenance, and constant vigilance imposed by contemporary housing.

Usso does not seek to correct individuals or prescribe behaviors. It acts upstream, through design, by offering favorable conditions for care, rest, relationship, and duration.

This project can take the form of a hamlet, an apartment building, a house, or an apartment. It can be embodied in a new place or in a partial transformation. It can begin with a single reworked room.

The Usso habitat is not spectacular. It is livable.

A habitat that accepts patina, transformation, and appropriation. A habitat that quietly takes care of humans, non-humans, and time.