Vækerø rowhouses
The assignment involves the design and construction of six row houses spanning three floors each. The main challenge was the need to increase the facade area to accommodate the maximum number of rooms possible in a compact ensemble. To achieve this, two operations were carried out: first, the displacement and rotation of the building components, and second, the strategic placement of an access courtyard between the units. The incorporation of the courtyard in each of the houses aims to enhance visual connectivity and open up the ground floor, allowing for height adjustments to meet the program and regulations. These two operations aim to ensure better and more uniform sunlight exposure for the houses and, at the same time, minimize the visual impact that a continuous facade of such height and length would have on the immediate surroundings. Regarding the formal reading of the ensemble, efforts were made to volumetrically articulate the six houses, ensuring a certain unity in the design. A beam and walls with slats stitch the ensemble together, defining the courtyard and the access gallery to the houses. Simultaneously, the immediate environment and its characteristic existing pine tree are utilized. In this way, the beam embraces it, making it a participant in the project. The objective was to work on a row house program, analyzing the potentialities presented by this typology in terms of the physical appropriation of the land and the formal and spatial relationships established among the different units.
