(CreatAR Images/Reprodução Archdaily)
Two houses - one pink and one blue - stand out among the buildings in Dameisha, a village in the suburbs of Shenzhen, China. The vibrant colors are actually one of the ways that architecture firm
Wutopia Lab found to discuss the roles of contrasting aspects of men and women in the kitchen and how this is reflected in daily habits. The installation entitled "His House and Her House" is part of the seventh edition of Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture, which opened in December 2017.
Wutopia believes that public kitchens have traditionally been dominated by men, while women have been in charge of domestic kitchens. To demonstrate the differences, they assigned each house to a gender and used colors that at first seem stereotypical: blue for male buildings ; pink, for the feminine. "Blue is a symbol of survival and competition. Pink represents sensitivity and delicacy," the architects explained to the website
Yellow Trace . They add: "The delicacy of existence created by women and the Man's desire for existence contributes to the duality of each one." Tones are also widely used in insulation materials.
His House
The single-story blue house is divided into three exhibition spaces and has green walls and blue ceilings and floors – the inspiration here was the color palette of French painter Henri Matisse. Triangular shapes appear on the door frames and door handles and reinforce the masculine tone. of construction. The largest of the rooms has a beer pool and a wall made of wine bottles.
In another room, strips of bacon hang from ceiling beams like leaves. In a third room, chunks of meat are roasting over a fire.
(CreatAR Images/Reprodução Archdaily)
If we look at the house as a whole, the rooms represent culinary items related to the male universe: alcoholic beverages, cured meat and barbecue. The three parts, in fact, use food preservation methods: fermentation, curing and smoking - that is, forms found by humans to preserve themselves. In a hidden room, overhead lighting provides natural light and highlights the floor covered in salt, an ingredient also widely used to preserve food.
Her House
Salt is the ingredient that unites the two buildings. However, in the feminine part, it appears in pink and covers the ground of the garden and patio, matching the tone of the facade. Curtains hide the balcony and represent feminine introspection.
(CreatAR Images/Reprodução Archdaily)
Inside the two-story building, several areas are dedicated to so-called feminine culinary activities: two bakeries correspond to the East and the West, rooms are dedicated to afternoon tea and two bedrooms are used to practice the Japanese art of flower arrangement called
ikebana .
(CreatAR Images/Reprodução Archdaily)
Semicircular patterns are repeated on doors and handles. The original openings were maintained and the shutter doors were transformed into large windows, which allow for integration of the interior and exterior.
