Architectural Epistemes of Housing: Towards an Analytical Apparatus for Reading Individualization

Contemporary theories of dwelling have extended architectural analysis beyond form, function, and typology toward embodied experience, enactment, temporal change, and affective relations. Yet their translation into a transparent procedure for reading architectural evidence remains underdeveloped. This paper develops an apparatus for examining architecture's potential to support individualization, understood as relational differentiation within architectural continuity rather than as personalization or flexibility. An integrative conceptual review and framework analysis synthesize phenomenology, performativity and affect theory into six architectural epistemes: Space, Body, Time, Threshold, Atmosphere and Act. Their translation into guiding questions directs the analysis of published plans, sections, photographs, audio and video materials, and project descriptions. Findings are combined through abductive cross-episteme synthesis to identify architectural mechanisms. The procedure is applied to and demonstrated through Moriyama House (2002-2005) by Ryue Nishizawa. The analysis identifies four mechanisms: 1) dispersing volumes and functions, 2) externalizing circulation and part of the dwelling, 3) overlapping territories, and 4) distributing distances and views. The possibilities these mechanisms offer for autonomy, change, and contact among residents remain conditional on weather, accessibility, privacy, and unequal control over space.