Very few building plans use a regular pentagon as a base. The pentagon is an undervalued shape for human dwellings.

Orthogonality permeates our lives. It has become second nature and we rarely, if ever, question it. Developed countries as well as cultures influenced by the West mostly live in an orthogonal world that they have created. This is linked to our love affair with science and logic which can be traced back to the choice that we made a few centuries ago to follow Descartes’ famous “I think therefore I am.”

We’ve been doing a hell of a lot of thinking and we have pretty much forgotten how to feel. We have followed our mind more than we did our heart. It’s time for a change.

Economy, efficiency, productivity, quarterly reports and the necessity to continually increase the ROI of the shareholders are some of the reasons behind our obsession with the 90 degree angle.

It is true that orthogonal boxes stack well together. Volumes stackable in 3 dimensions are a great choice when performance is the driving force. The world’s distribution system was containerized to increase efficiency. The shipping container is at the heart of our out-of-control consumption habit. Amazon boxes fit really well into them.

Many of the objects that we use every day are based on the rectangle. Our phone nicely fits in the drawer of our table which conveniently fits in the room of our house. All these items that we cannot live without answer to one rule: orthogonality. It’s convenient and it’s probably a good solution to many problems but surely, it cannot be the answer to all the questions.

The pentagonal design of the Superstition Bungalow questions the validity of orthogonality in the context of a living space. It is an effort to break a habit, an effort to rehab from our addiction to the 90 degree angle.

Let’s free ourselves from the jailhouse of orthogonality! One pentagon at a time.