The house with the red gate
"The house is not a machine for living in. No Sir! The house is a spatial refuge that has to be filled with the exuberance of the life we have yet to invent". Kiesler, Frederick, 1959.
A few blocks away from the city’s river and close to a train station, the project is located in a small -105m2- urban site close to the city center. The proposal aims to make a contribution to the built environment by intervening a residual space, filling a void from the urban fabric. That way, the house give value to the already consolidated environment, favoring social mixture and taking advantage of the services and infrastructures available in this urban location.
In a small surface area, only 7m wide and 15m long, the proposal gets stacked vertically in a series floors in order to optimize the layout. The project rejects spatial hierarchies, rather proposing an open and flexible system, achieving a free and seamless space.
The open ground floor is a stimulating place that allows a great variety of activities where its inhabitants will discover new forms of appropriation and uses for the same place. On this floor, the whole site is recognized, placing the main staircase at the opposite side of the access, creating the need to walk through the entire space before entering the interior.
The living space is developed on the first floor, integrated with the kitchen, dining room and double height terrace, in an entire open space. A second staircase guides to the following floors where the bedrooms are located, ending in a terrace with great views of the neighborhood.
On the main facade, the boundary becomes thick with a vegetal curtain and a system of pre-cast concrete blocks, configuring layers between public and private space that define the expression and privacy of the proposal.
The project encourages the idea of living close to the urban center, reducing the need of mobility, in order to reach optimal parameters of a sustainable city.
