MICHEL
27-03-2006, 23:15
A few weeks ago, I came across an incredible example of what I would call 'bare architecture' and wanted to share it with you. What better than posting a model then? :D This house, located in an jaw dropping landscape in Coliumo - Chile -, is from a young chilean firm called PEZO VON ELLRICHSHAUSEN ARQUITECTOS (http://www.pezo.cl/). I really hope you'll enjoy the extraordinary work achieved here as it represents, at least for me, the absolute essence of Architecture: space and light! Of course, having modelled the house, I might understand a little better than you what I meant with 'space' :D Check it out for yourself!
But let the architects speak of their work:
"Poli House
The work is located on the Coliumo Peninsula (550 km south of Santiago); a rural setting scarcely populated by farmers, independent fishermen and timid summer tourists.
This distant position conditioned our intentions in two ways. On the one hand, we had to work with archaic technology and laborers lacking any specialization. On the other hand, we had to disrupt an idyllic landscape, whose overwhelming perfection would be disturbed sooner or later. Both conditions obliged us to practice a quite primitive exercise: to raise something up for the first time in a place where it had never been done. In this way, and with Loss's sanctions on our shoulders, this new building should be no more than a severe figure situated amidst land and seascapes, in what could be seen as a refutation of the contemporary speeches that dilute the ditinction between natural and artificial.
It is always diffucult to resist the temptation of going close to the edge of the cliff, of feeling the drop. There always seems to be a somewhat morbid sensation of vertigo. But, in this case, the landscape engineers warned us that we could only build close to the edge if we left a security margin towards the east side. They said the weight of the construction could make the clay composition of the soil slide against the tilted granite of the base. This forced us to limit the volume to a compact figure that would occupy a minimal amount of land and whose telluric composition would be in charge of transferring the load directly to the ground. Bearing in mind that any new image would in any case alter the natural background, we built this compact structure without scale references or any intention of smoothing its roughness.
Once we established this position that obstructed the flattest area, it was necessary to elevate the floor until we recovered at least two things: both the sensation of a natural podium surrounded by nothing and the morbid and unavoidable sight of the foot of the cliffs, where the sea explodes against the rocks. So, right from the beginning, we determined the height of the building and substituted roof for a terrace that occupies the entire horizontal extension.
Following this operation, the floor became a horizontal podium divided into three platforms that adapt to the slope in a zigzagging way. The triple height of the space of the lower platform, oriented to the northwest, attempts to contain the vertical dimension of the place; that is the drop, the vertigo, the gravity. Therefore, through this interior void, we intensify the aerial experience of the hill and also understand the sea not only as horizon but also as surface and volume.
These first operations are more complex when considered together with the program's demands that it function both as a summer house and a cultural center, hosting activities such as reunions, workshops and exhibitions. This established a contradictory proposal: the interior would have to mediate between a very public aspect and a very intimate and informal one. That is, it had to be both monumental and domestic without any of the negative aspects of either one affecting the other.
Therefore, we decided not name to the rooms but instead to leave them nameless and functionless, just empty rooms with varying degrees of connection between them. We then decided to organize all the service functions in an over-dimensioned perimeter (the functional width), inside a thick wall that acts as a buffer. Inside this hollowed mass we placed the kitchen, the vertical circulations, the bathrooms, the closets and a series of interior balconies (which protect the northern and western windows from the sun and the rain). If necessary, all the furniture and domestic objects can be stored inside this perimeter, freeing the space for multiple activities.
Besides this programmatic organization, we had to consider the need for walls on which to mount expositions. This made the obvious decision of a big, panoramic window obsolete and instead gave us the measurement to organize a series of different landscape frames with variable interior situations.
All the work was built with hand-made concrete (a material that ages naturally) using untreated, wooden frames. The work was done, with a small mixer and four wheelbarrows, in horizontal stratums that matched the height of half a wooden board. We then used the same battered wood of the frames to wrap the interior and to build sliding panels that function both as doors to hide the services of the perimeter and as security shutters that cover the windows when the house is left alone.
Truly, we consider these operations as a denouncement of the state of things and a sort of confirmation of our interest in discovering the potential within raw things; within sketches that need not be finished in order to make evident what they are saying."
But let the architects speak of their work:
"Poli House
The work is located on the Coliumo Peninsula (550 km south of Santiago); a rural setting scarcely populated by farmers, independent fishermen and timid summer tourists.
This distant position conditioned our intentions in two ways. On the one hand, we had to work with archaic technology and laborers lacking any specialization. On the other hand, we had to disrupt an idyllic landscape, whose overwhelming perfection would be disturbed sooner or later. Both conditions obliged us to practice a quite primitive exercise: to raise something up for the first time in a place where it had never been done. In this way, and with Loss's sanctions on our shoulders, this new building should be no more than a severe figure situated amidst land and seascapes, in what could be seen as a refutation of the contemporary speeches that dilute the ditinction between natural and artificial.
It is always diffucult to resist the temptation of going close to the edge of the cliff, of feeling the drop. There always seems to be a somewhat morbid sensation of vertigo. But, in this case, the landscape engineers warned us that we could only build close to the edge if we left a security margin towards the east side. They said the weight of the construction could make the clay composition of the soil slide against the tilted granite of the base. This forced us to limit the volume to a compact figure that would occupy a minimal amount of land and whose telluric composition would be in charge of transferring the load directly to the ground. Bearing in mind that any new image would in any case alter the natural background, we built this compact structure without scale references or any intention of smoothing its roughness.
Once we established this position that obstructed the flattest area, it was necessary to elevate the floor until we recovered at least two things: both the sensation of a natural podium surrounded by nothing and the morbid and unavoidable sight of the foot of the cliffs, where the sea explodes against the rocks. So, right from the beginning, we determined the height of the building and substituted roof for a terrace that occupies the entire horizontal extension.
Following this operation, the floor became a horizontal podium divided into three platforms that adapt to the slope in a zigzagging way. The triple height of the space of the lower platform, oriented to the northwest, attempts to contain the vertical dimension of the place; that is the drop, the vertigo, the gravity. Therefore, through this interior void, we intensify the aerial experience of the hill and also understand the sea not only as horizon but also as surface and volume.
These first operations are more complex when considered together with the program's demands that it function both as a summer house and a cultural center, hosting activities such as reunions, workshops and exhibitions. This established a contradictory proposal: the interior would have to mediate between a very public aspect and a very intimate and informal one. That is, it had to be both monumental and domestic without any of the negative aspects of either one affecting the other.
Therefore, we decided not name to the rooms but instead to leave them nameless and functionless, just empty rooms with varying degrees of connection between them. We then decided to organize all the service functions in an over-dimensioned perimeter (the functional width), inside a thick wall that acts as a buffer. Inside this hollowed mass we placed the kitchen, the vertical circulations, the bathrooms, the closets and a series of interior balconies (which protect the northern and western windows from the sun and the rain). If necessary, all the furniture and domestic objects can be stored inside this perimeter, freeing the space for multiple activities.
Besides this programmatic organization, we had to consider the need for walls on which to mount expositions. This made the obvious decision of a big, panoramic window obsolete and instead gave us the measurement to organize a series of different landscape frames with variable interior situations.
All the work was built with hand-made concrete (a material that ages naturally) using untreated, wooden frames. The work was done, with a small mixer and four wheelbarrows, in horizontal stratums that matched the height of half a wooden board. We then used the same battered wood of the frames to wrap the interior and to build sliding panels that function both as doors to hide the services of the perimeter and as security shutters that cover the windows when the house is left alone.
Truly, we consider these operations as a denouncement of the state of things and a sort of confirmation of our interest in discovering the potential within raw things; within sketches that need not be finished in order to make evident what they are saying."