E-039

Villa in Lesbos . Elia Zenghelis for OMA . 1970's

E-038

Naked House, Saitama, Japan . Shigeru Ban . 2000

'Having met the client only once, I was again considering what to do about the project of this house, when the client sent me a facsimile making precise requests. What he wanted was described as a house that “provides the least privacy so that the family members are not secluded from one another, a house that gives everyone the freedom to have individual activities in a shared atmosphere, in the middle of a unified family”. After reading his fax, I knew that I should take up this challenge.
The site of the house sits by a river and is surrounded by fields with greenhouses here and there.
The external walls made of two sheets of corrugated fiber-reinforced plastics and the inner walls made of a nylon fabric are both mounted on wooden stud frames and sit in parallel. In between are attached clear plastic bags, carefully stuffed with strings of foamed polyethylene for insulation purpose. Through these bags a soft diffused light fills in the interior of the house.
The house consists of one unique large space of two-story high in which four personal rooms on casters can be moved freely. To reduce weight and optimize mobility, these rooms are not very large and hold a minimum of belongings and fittings. They can be moved accordingly to the needs of their use. Placed against the walls of the house, in front of the heating or air-conditioning units, warm air or a cooling breeze can flow into it. They can also be put side by side and create a larger room, when their sliding doors are removed. They can be taken outside, on the terrace, for the full use of the space inside. They can also work as a supplementary floor for the children to play on top.
This house is, indeed, a result of my vision of enjoyable and flexible living, which evolved from the client’s own vision toward a living and a family life.'

http://www.shigerubanarchitects.com/works/2000_naked-house/

P-010

Cortijo Villegas, Fuente Vaqueros . © Antonio Jiménez Torrecillas . 2006

La forma del secadero revela el proceso de su construcción.
Sobre una zanja  excavada en la tierra se levanta un zuncho.
La estructura de fustes de chopo se cubre con tejas reutilizadas.
El cerramiento actúa de carcasa ventilada de la estructura.
Sobre unos ladrillos se apoyan unos prefabricados de hormigón reciclados.
Un cable de acero los asegura contra el vuelco.
Ya más arriba, se van disponiendo cortezas de piel de chopo,
el sobrante de los trabajos realizados en la serrería,
siguiendo la forma inclinada de la cubierta.
Al ser todas las tablillas de la misma longitud,
el triangulo restante inferior se completa con una disposición horizontal.'

Antonio Jiménez Torrecillas
El viaje de vuelta. El encuentro de la contemporaneidad a través de lo vernáculo
2006

F-009

San Giorgio Courtyard, 'Viva Churchill' . © Vittorio Pandolfi . 1950s

'La versione in ektachrome di un cortile sangiorgese negli anni '50, notare la scritta sulla parete di fondo, le truppe di occupazione erano andate via da pochi anni lasciando tracce.'

Vittorio Pandolfi

https://www.flickr.com/photos/agedsenator/1813753098/

 

E-037

House Without Qualities, Cologne . Oswald Mathias Ungers . 1995

'Haus III or the “House Without qualities” (Haus ohne Eigenschaften) is a late work by German architect Oswald Mathias Ungers which the architect built for his wife and himself. Constructed in Cologne in 1995, the house is considered an experiment on the reduction of architectural elements  and it materializes the research on abstraction which Ungers had developed over the years; in this sense, the building can by seen as a conceptual model for a house which has been made real through building.
The house has a rectangular plan based on a classical architectural scheme, a central space and two side-aisles. It consists of two floors with five rooms, a central double-height volume and four equal rooms in the side-aisles.
Crucial in the design of the plan is the thickness of the exterior and the interior walls which are used to incorporate service facilities, like stairs, toilets, the elevator, bathrooms and storage spaces. The width of the walls is always the same through the whole plan.
The façades are identical by twos, symmetrical and constructed according to specific rules of proportions, no differentiation is pursued between the front and the back and the same window/door size is employed. The plan’s geometry is not made evident in the elevations in any way.
The extreme synthesis, the reduction of elements (no decoration, no hierarchy, no style) makes evident Ungers’ obsessive research for the essence of architecture, which the architect identified in the strict rules of composition.'

http://socks-studio.com/2015/11/10/house-without-qualities-by-o-m-ungers-1995/

E-036

Quinta da Conceição, Matosinhos . Fernando Távora . 1956-60

'La Quinta da Conceição era una propiedad particular que el ayuntamiento de Matosinhos decidió transformar en parque público. El interés de la obra reside precisamente en la interpretación arquitectónica del cambio de programa. La mayor alteración introducida por el proyecto consiste en la apertura de nuevas entradas y de un nuevo eje de circulación que las une. El resto de los recorridos del parque se organizan a partir de los vestigios arquitectónicos y paisajísticos de los usos anteriores, como dominio de un convento en el siglo XV y como propiedad particular en época más reciente. Los pavimentos, muros y vegetación introducidos por el proyecto «explican» los vestigios, prologándolos sin mimetismo. El pabellón de apoyo a las pistas de tenis se levanta en la parte superior del terreno, dominando toda la zona libre de vegetación paralela al nuevo eje de circulación. El diseño en consola de la terraza y de la cubierta enfatiza la posición de remate de la edificación, simbolizando al mismo tiempo la función lúdica del parque'

http://www.docomomoiberico.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=1725:pabellon-de-tenis-de-la-quinta-da-conceicao&Itemid=11&vista=1&lang=en

A-010

'You', Gavin Brown's Enterprise Gallery, Chelsea . Urs Fischer . 2007

'“You” is an art installation by Urs Fischer done in 2007 at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise Gallery in Chelsea. Consisting of  a 30 foot by 30 foot crater, 8 feet deep dug into the foundation of the gallery.
The installation took 10 days and was done at a cost of over $250 000.
The following warning greeted visitors “THE INSTALLATION IS PHYSICALLY DANGEROUS AND INHERENTLY INVOLVES THE RISK OF SERIOUS INJURY OR DEATH”'

https://no-one.la/stories/urs-fischer-2007