Domestic Variations.

Architecture and the adaptation of human beings to the environment.

Abstract

A few months ago, the body of the last survivor of an uncontacted Amazonian tribe was found in his hut. He had lived alone since 1995, and since then had been observed by the Guaporé Ethno-environmental Protection Front of the National Foundation for the Indian (Funai), which was responsible for the protection of that territory. Every three months, Funai officials would approach the area and use a camera to check that no one had accessed the area. Thanks to this system, the few existing images of the solitary survivor are still preserved. These officials then reported that this was the 53rd construction since this individual was monitored and that all his huts maintained the same typological scheme, invariably had a door and a hole. This article essays an architectural and humanistic reflection on this singularity of reiteration of the type, on the conciliation between form, function, and context, and on the sense in which architecture operates as a double adaptation, from the environment to human being, from human being to the environment, and constitutes the frame of reference of our way of life on the planet.