the bug is one of several such structures that the brothers have produced in their efforts to combine building with movement. according to the architects, ‘the envelope is an instrument of communication – it changes it structure according to the events that occur inside’. the structure can support one person, and as he moves, it shifts its center of gravity to stabilize itself, and in some ways to express something about the person housed inside.

the bug is a philosophical exploration that strives to ‘visualize the solitude of man in his environment’. in the same that a hermit, in his seclusion, can have an impact on society by the fact that people know he exists, the bug allows a person to be separate from the world, but since his movements are echoed in the shifting of the structure, he is still visible and in the world as the box changes shape.

the mechanism that allows the bug to change from one balanced state to another is an arrangement of ‘articulated parallelograms’, planes and hinges. as karim and rames put it, it is like ‘a struggle of architectural s trying to escape their static shape’. playfulness is there, but also a sense of being distanced from the physical world while still being able to confirm your existence in it.
text by phyllis richardson