A New Norris House: About
In 1933 the Tennessee Valley Authority built a model community, Norris, Tennessee, as part of the Norris Dam water works project. A key feature of this New Deal development was the Norris House, an assembly of home designs built as models for modern and efficient living. Seventy-five years after the town’s beginning, the paradigm for a home in Norris must reposition itself in the 21st century so that the home may again engage an active community. The new Norris house will transpose the original vision of a sustainable Norris and embrace the adept, global social network while locating itself with a lightness and vernacular rigor essential to the original TVA vision.
The design concept stems from an examination of why Norris’ original planned nature failed. While it would be easy to demonize globalization, it is important to recognize the benefits which such a global outlook has brought. (Increased trade, culture, etc.)
UPLOAD explores the potential for a future where the mechanics of globalization function synergistically with local economies. As the pendulum swings from a history of predominantly localized economies to a predominantly globalized economy and the effects therein, UPLOAD sees a middle ground where a new type of strengthened local economy becomes possible precisely because of the products and technologies resulting from the previously destructive forces of globalization.
The concept of uploading and downloading in a digital sense is easy to understand.
[upload photos, download email, etc]
But when considering the New Norris House, we asked ourselves: How is this realized in the domestic realm? What does it mean to upload on the scale of the home and community itself?