American artist Mary Ellen Carroll makes a comparable discerning statement, uncovering architecture's political, social, and cultural features with the unalloyed act of pivoting 180 degrees an ordinary 1960s single-family, ranch-style, residence set in the senescence subdivision of Sharpstown in Houston, Texas. Her project, entitled prototype 180, irrefutably resurfaces Foucault's plainspoken but pressing inquiries on architecture: "How is one to conceive of both the organization of a city and the construction of a collective infrastructure?…[H]ow should houses be built?"
![From <i>prototype 180</i> by Mary Ellen Carroll. Photograph by Kenny Trice From <i>prototype 180</i> by Mary Ellen Carroll. Photograph by Kenny Trice](/content/dam/domusweb/en/news/2011/03/08/prototype-180-by-mary-ellen-carroll/big_330653_7177_IMG_48214.jpg.foto.rmedium.jpg)
![From <i>prototype 180</i> by Mary Ellen Carroll. Photograph by Kenny Trice From <i>prototype 180</i> by Mary Ellen Carroll. Photograph by Kenny Trice](/content/dam/domusweb/en/news/2011/03/08/prototype-180-by-mary-ellen-carroll/big_330653_1399_IMG_39724.jpg.foto.rmedium.jpg)
prototype 180 turns its back to the street, drawing attention to the social context, as well as to our pre-established and usually uncontested architectural, urban, and cultural norms.
![From <i>prototype 180</i> by Mary Ellen Carroll. Photograph by Kenny Trice From <i>prototype 180</i> by Mary Ellen Carroll. Photograph by Kenny Trice](/content/dam/domusweb/en/news/2011/03/08/prototype-180-by-mary-ellen-carroll/big_330653_1023_IMG_38762.jpg.foto.rmedium.jpg)
![From <i>prototype 180</i> by Mary Ellen Carroll. Photograph by Kenny Trice From <i>prototype 180</i> by Mary Ellen Carroll. Photograph by Kenny Trice](/content/dam/domusweb/en/news/2011/03/08/prototype-180-by-mary-ellen-carroll/big_330653_4077_IMG_38523.jpg.foto.rmedium.jpg)