Rethinking the Author as an Open Field The Dishwasher House by Frances Gabe

Abstract

Starting from a dismissed history, the self-cleaning house designed by Frances Gabe in 1984 –conceived through separate patents – this contribution explores how patents both define and negate the role of the architect by enabling replication, complicating conventional notions of intellectual authorship.

Gabe proposes an autonomous and self-taught design research methodology focusing on a central question: does designing a house using patents equate to designing a space itself?

The author develops a design process that is not the result of specific contexts or concepts but rather emerges from a certain mathematical sum of assembled parts.

This contribution aims to investigate the trajectories suggested by this case study, namely, to open up the field of the author to undefined or indefinable instances, transforming methodological experimentation in design. It does so by examining a one-of-a-kind house – on the edge of epic – that merges the person-author with hypotheses of automatism, programmatic intents, and patents.

Keywords: authorship, GABE self-cleaning house, design-driven research