House in Koamicho - Suppose Design Office

When we normally feel “interior” or “exterior”, what are the causes?

And what are the causes of feeling “open” or “narrow”?

This is house designed with much thought to how, from those root causes, we define the conditions of a space. In a long, narrow space, we constructed walls, and by laying out a space in which we experience many rooms, we turn “narrowness” into “openness. “Further, taking rooms and gardens as equivalent, we created spaces that are like the exteriors, calling them “garden rooms”.

By moving from room to another room, we can alternately experience interior and exterior, and they become the place where every rooms are connected to the exterior.

By moving from room to another room, we can alternately experience interior and exterior, and they become the place where every rooms are connected to the exterior. Here we have succeeded in realizing a space, which pass traditional definitions to materialized a new relationship between – interior and exterior.

Architects: Suppose design office
Location: Koamicho, Hiroshima, Japan
Site Area: 102.86 sqm
Building Area: 62.80 sqm
Total Floor Area: 121.97 sqm
Project Year: 2008-2009
Photographs: Toshiyuki Yano

VIA: TECNOHAUS

House in Somosaguas - A-cero

The spanish architecture firm A-cero, directed by Joaquin Torres, has built a new house in the Madrid outskirts that synthesizes the evolution of the studio’s signature design language and its technical experimentation over the last years.

The house can be aesthetically inscribed in the series of projects made by the studio since its international expansion, in places like the Dominican Republic and Dubai, presenting a greater spatial complexity and and use of shapes that underlines the relation between A-cero’s architecture and contemporary sculpture.

At first impression the house clearly shows its intentions, with the dominance of stylized curves and bold shapes that relate harmonically to its natural context while keeping a clearly modern character. The horizontal shapes pile up one on another, creating a stratified building that seems to emerge from the earth like a natural formation, the façades are treated with a texturized dark concrete, completing the mineral analogy.

In this capacity of being at once natural in its matter and artificial in its forms, the house reminds of the work of minimalist sculptors like David Nash, or a piece of land art.

The interior contains a varied program, solved with a very complex array of spaces with different heights and levels, as well as the particular shape of some of the rooms. The lower level contains the main hall -covered by a curved ceiling that accentuates its relevance-, living and dining rooms, master bedroom, gym, interior pool, kitchen and service areas.

On the upper level is located a painting studio, under a long curved ceiling, flooded with natural light and the best views over the surrounding landscape. The basement is dedicated to health and leisure, with a bar, games room, chill out, massage room, projection room, cellar and gym.

The spaces are freed of columns and other elements that would alter its fluidity and openness, light materials have been used in the interior design to improve this aspect. The floors are covered with large format white ceramic tiles and the bathrooms are finished in white aluminum.

A-cero / Joaquin Torres

Somosaguas, Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid, España

Rafael Llamazares

Year: 2005-2007

Exploded House - GAD

Bodrum is an Aegean, Mediterranean port-trade settlement with a history of more than three thousand years, including Hellenistic, Roman, Ottoman times.

Ideas behind the design are:

An explosion of parts-open plan for outdoor living-passive ventilation-rainwater as a natural cooling system-harmony with the landscape.

Bodrum is a Mediterranean port-trade settlement in the Southwest of Turkey. The area boasts a rich history of over three thousand years, including Hellenistic times. The venerated scientist Heredot was born there and sculptures by artists including Leochares, Bryaxis, and Timotheos were exhibited there and can now be found in museum collections around the world.

The outdated codes restrict new forms of architecture being introduced to the landscape. To overcome this and create a more flexible building type, GAD created a house made from three separate buildings – a metaphor for a single building that has been “exploded” into many parts. Each individual unit, which complies with the regulatory size of 75 square meters, is built next to one another with a narrow space in between and is linked by a glass atrium.

Conceived as a single house, each building has a separate function: a master bedroom and bathroom; a kitchen and dining room; and a guesthouse with an adjacent study room.

The central glass vestibule acts as the entrance to the building as well as the main living area with 180° view of the stunning landscape and bay made possible by floor to ceiling windows. Operated electronically, the windows have the capacity to slide open flush to the ground, allowing for sea breezes to flood the interior. This innermost space is the focal point of the house and is connected to the three houses by a series of concrete ramps that reconcile the building with the landscape. An additional slope that can be used as a sun deck and for light recreational activities descends to the contiguous swimming pool located on land set at a slightly lower grade from the house. From here the ramp leads down the hillside to an additional self-contained apartment building that is set within the land and hidden from the house above.

The open-plan of the main house ensures that it is light and airy, a must in the summer. As a secondary precaution, the roof of the building is covered with pools that collect rainwater. The water cascades from the roof of one of the buildings to the other and is then circulated back round, creating a natural cooling system for a hot climate.

The “Exploded House” reinterprets traditional dwellings in the area, yet its angular structure that fits into the clefts in the hillside, remains in keeping with the natural environment and when seen from above the pools mirror the surrounding landscape and the endless vista of the bay and help mask the presence of the building on the hill.

Interior design: Owner has a vast antique collection, which consist of Hellenistic, Byzantine and Ottoman times. Generally there is always a problem for collectors houses :to turn to a museum.. Info structural conditions like the climate, daylight-artificial light and security become more dominant than the daily life ..

Interior designer Hakan Ezer successfully achieved to integrate these valuable collection pieces to the daily life without loosing the functionality..

In addition to this, we should not forget the owner couple’s open-mindness and preference of a livable house rather than a museum house.

Architects: Gokhan Avcioglu / GAD
Location: Bodrum, Turkey
Interior Design: Hakan Ezer
Client: Vedat Semiz, Sureyya Semiz
Site Area: 5,000 sqm
Project Area: 600 sqm
Project Year: 2003
Photographs: Ali Bekman, Ozlem Avcioglu

VIA: TECNOHAUS