URBAN LIVING ROOMS

Urban Living Rooms embraces the idea that American style is not defined by a single aesthetic, but by the coexistence of many histories, traditions, and identities over the past 250 years. Across seventeen suspended “rooms”, the installation presents a glimpse of the artistic, cultural, and social influences that have shaped American life: from Indigenous traditions and early domestic crafts to immigration, industry, music, film, and contemporary culture.

The project begins with a simple premise: every American, whether born in the States or arriving from all over the world, is in some way an artist and curator of their own domestic environment. Through personal choices of furniture, objects, colors, textures, and decoration, people transform living spaces into expressions of identity, memory, aspiration, and belonging. The living room, in particular, serves as a stage where personal narratives become visible. It is a domestic communal space for gathering, hosting, celebrating, and sharing life with others, while simultaneously revealing individual tastes, cultural heritage, and ways of living. 

By translating the living room into an urban setting, the project transforms a familiar domestic space into a collective public experience. Each suspended room becomes a cultural space, inviting visitors to move between distinct yet interconnected histories, aesthetics, and influences. Together, they create a spatial portrait of the United States as a place where diverse traditions exist alongside one another rather than within a single dominant narrative.

The installation views American style not as a fixed visual language but as an ongoing process of exchange, adaptation, and reinvention. Throughout the past 250 years, American culture has been continuously shaped by Indigenous knowledge, waves of migration, global influences, technological innovation, and regional traditions. The patterns and interiors referenced throughout the project reflect this layered history, drawing connections between domestic life and larger cultural movements. While the exterior of the installation presents a unified visual identity through a continuous blue-green gradient, the interiors reveal a multiplicity of voices, stories, and aesthetics expressed through seventeen distinct pattern environments. From a distance, the work appears cohesive and singular; upon closer interaction, it unfolds into a rich collection of individual narratives and cultural references. 

To learn more about the patterns, please click here.

Commissioned by: CityCenterDC

Printing Service: Britten INC

Fabricators: Design Foundry

Photos by Chris Bryan