Proposal for a single family house in Moita, Portugal, done on the occasion of the exhibition A Casa Portuguesa – Mudando a Arte de Habitar at the Experimenta Design in Lisbon, Portugal (2005).
Design team: marcosandmarjan; Collaboration: Tze-Chun Wei, Po Chuan, Wanda Yu-Ying Hu).
Design team: marcosandmarjan; Collaboration: Tze-Chun Wei, Po Chuan, Wanda Yu-Ying Hu).
The project plays with the notion of the family villa, and attempts to develop a typological strategy taking in consideration structural as well as spatial factors. In terms of villa typology, the proposal is not generated by grids, by structural efficiency, by NURBS topology; the design is synthetic and results from an inclusive methodology that involves the premonition of the user’s inhabitation of the spaces and also digital 3D modelling techniques and manufacturing know-how. A simple division of programme is proposed – the public spaces are spread out on the ground floor, while the private spaces hover above in a series of vessels that allow individual rooms to be connected or separated from each other. These vessels are organised in longitudinal volumes with east–west orientation. The volumetric intersection of these highly structured elements creates programmatic pockets that perform most of the necessary domestic functions, such as sleeping, cleaning, working or communicating, and contain most of the house’s appliances. The more public areas on the ground floor are more flexible and open up to an artificial and a natural landscape that surrounds the house. When the façade is opened up, the boundary between interior and exterior space becomes blurred and the public realm is enlarged to the perimeter of the garden.
The highly structural appearance of the design is simultaneously supported by large surfaces of laser-cut window screens and louvre-like panels. These create an ornamented dress around the public spaces that filter light, air and the view over the garden. There are two proposed entrances: a west-side, more formal entrance that can be used by visitors and people who walk into the house, and an east-side entrance that serves the daily needs of the inhabitants who arrive by car. The garage acquires an important role, both as the most commonly used entrance to the house, and as a sort of horizontal wall that protects the house from its surrounding. From here the inhabitants can deliver shopping bags through a wall that intrafaces directly with the kitchen, before accessing the house through a double-height lobby with a direct link to the upper rooms.
