The Advantages of Living on a Loop (3rd part)

CONVERSATION BETWEEN POWERHOUSE COMPANY, EKHI LOPETEGI AND ARQUITECTURA-G

(See first part) (See second part)

Published at Apartamento Magazine #3

http://www.apartamentomagazine.com/

POWERHOUSE COMPANY

Brutality is often referred as a negative word, because it is most often associated with the idea of the “brute”, a being with a cruel or aggressive behavior. But brutality can also mean some­thing “brut”, raw and un-mitigated like in the case of Jean Dubuffet’s “art brut”. In that sense the brutality of the Spiral House is in our eyes directed at the site and not directed at the old house. The two volumes share the same an unmitigated relationship to the site. This is the only thing they have in com­mon and that is also what unites them.

When looking at the site plan, the old house appears as if it was “dropped” randomly on the site – it makes no attempt to insert itself in the context.

When we visited the first time we immediately noticed it, the old house was sitting on the site in the same way as a forgotten and isolated object would, as something left behind. But some­how its isolation and its brutal juxtaposition on the site had a positive aspect: it almost gave to the old house the status of a sculpture displayed in a park. On the other hand the banality of the volume prevented the house to really achieve its potential sculptural presence and inhabit the site as such.

Though the extension was to double the size of the house it was clear that it would not be insufficient to occupy or inhabit the park. At the very beginning we tried to design it as a land­scape architecture where the extension would become a “hill” attached to the old house attempting to anchor it on the site. But it never worked, the sculptural potential of the old house was getting weaker and the new landscape element was simply too small and too anecdotal compared to the overwhelming size of the site.

It became clear that we had to find a third approach.

To reinforce the sculptural aspect of the old house and to reinforce the presence of both inhabitations in the site, we designed the extension as a new sculptural volume dropped next to the old one. In this way the contrast between the two strengthened their identity, as well as helped each other to claim their sculptural presence in the park.

We do not think the relationship between the buildings as brutal since there is no cruelty in it. We see it more as an abrupt but playful encounter where the two volumes engage vigorous­ly with each other. Let’s say it’s like is an intercourse without foreplay… not necessarily unpleasant if there is no victim.

Arquitectura-G mentioned that the Spiral House “consid­ers a contemporary way of living more than a formal answer to what a XXI-st century house should be”. We agree very much with this statement and that is the way we’ve approach the de­sign of this house. In this regard, it is interesting to compare the two volumes because they testify the changes in the un­derstanding of a house. The 19th-century houses are organized with a very clear separation between “leisure rooms” like the salon, and “utilitarian rooms” like the kitchen, bedrooms etc. In the case of a farm the exterior is also the result of utilitarian approach to materials and structure. At the opposite, the Spiral House is fully designed as a pleasurable experience that offers a diversity of an internal as well as external situation. The old house becomes a part of this diversity of spaces and is not per­ceived anymore as a conventional straightjacket.

By understanding the two houses as an array of spatial expe­riences, it opens unlimited possibilities to extend it beyond its pure functional program.

In that respect the Spiral House did open up the old house to a new understanding shifting from a utilitarian to a qualita­tive interpretation.

We had the opportunity recently, with a project in Russia, to experiment with a similar situation but with more radicalism. We had to design a 2500m2 penthouse 300m above ground, and that was also for a single family with young kids. Designing for example a 500m2 living room is very unusual, and certainly cannot be approached from a functional and programmatic point of view – imagine how many sofas one would need to furnish it. This radical situation allowed us to illustrate clearly what the focus of our architecture is about.

 

EKHI LOPETEGUI

I should maybe clarify what I meant by ‘brutal’. I maybe put a special emphasis on its aggressiveness, but I don’t really think of it in a negative way, no victims or unpleasant feelings are presupposed here. What I actually meant is what Arquitectura-G explained in a more concise way as the losing of the iconic identity of the house. This, too, can seem ambiguous though, for the iconic identity of the house is also highlighted with the intervention, as far as it shows the bodies as clearly lim­ited individual units. So, the gesture of coupling the volumes somehow reinforces both the identity and the losing of it. The conceptual play of the difference and the identity is shown in its fullest here by bringing it up as an unsolved subject that architecture faces as such.

Of course, the coming together of the dwelling units has to be seen as a ‘playful encounter’ rather than as a ‘problematic crash’. It is playful because we gain new dwelling possibilities, and not only in terms of program. As explained in the Russian project, the design of a 500m2 living room cannot be achieved in utilitarian terms so the aproach must include some other experiential criteria. It can be guessed that this shift is entailed in the Spiral House too, as far as it’s “fully designed as a pleas­urable experience”, exceeding thus the utilitarian point of view. This is maybe how the ‘qualitative interpretation’ mentioned can be understood. The inclusion of such a wide concept as experience reframes the whole architecture perspective and uncovers a series of new problems, both theoretical and practi­cal. We could ask how ‘experience’ is understood in the Spiral House, even though I know the answer to such a concept can be hard to figure out. At least, we could state that the farm house as an utilitarian complex wasn’t meant to be experienced but to be used, while the Spiral House seems to seek being a place for ‘having experiences’ of any type. We should never misun­derstand this though, because being designed for having some sort of ‘experience’ won’t ever erase the functional needs, but it will necessarily include ‘experience’ as a variable to be taken as part of the program itself.

Therefore (apart from the gap separating the building and the site) because it’s linked to ‘experience’, it makes sense con­sidering the farmhouse and the extension in its ‘sculptural po­tential’. Sculpturally taken, the Spiral House falls under some sort of aesthetical treatment or point of view. I don’t mean that the house is now treated more artistically; I simply mean that it’s supposed to be a source of certain ‘sensations’ (the ‘pleas­urable experience’), and not only supposed to be a functional facility. In the end the word ‘aesthetic’ etymologically means nothing but ‘perceiving’ or ‘having sensations’. Now I should ask Charles, is this conceptual link between experience and architecture also considered while facing a project?