Hasta La Ideas

High concrete walls enclose a secret garden around this residence for a poet in Zaragoza – our second story this week from Spanish architect Alberto Campo Baeza.

Casa Moliner was designed by Alberto Campo Baeza as an introverted enclosure, with a clean white house surrounded by newly planted trees and a calming pool of water. Two-metre-high walls surround the site on every side, blocking views out as well as in.

“We raised high walls to create a box open to the sky, like a nude metaphysical garden with concrete walls and floor,” said the architect.

The three-storey house has two levels above ground, while a third floor is buried below the courtyard with sunken patios on each side. A staircase spirals up through the centre of the plan like a circular spine.

A library occupies the uppermost floor, creating a place for the poet to work. A wall of translucent glazing brings diffused light through the room, while a narrow window frames a single view across the neighbourhood.

“For dreaming, we created a cloud at the highest point,” said Campo Baeza, “with northern light for reading and writing, thinking and feeling.”

A single room on the ground floor forms a large living and dining area that opens out to the surrounding garden, while bedrooms and bathrooms are located downstairs.

Our first story this week about Campo Baeza featured a bulky concrete house on a hilltop in Toledo.

See more architecture by Alberto Campo Baeza »
See more houses in Spain »

Photography is by Javier Callejas.

Read on for a project description from Alberto Campo Baeza:

Moliner House, Zaragoza

To build a house for a poet. To make a house for dreaming, living and dying. A house in which to read, to write and to think.

We raised high walls to create a box open to the sky, like a nude, metaphysical garden, with concrete walls and floor. To create an interior world. We dug into the ground to plant leafy trees.

And floating in the centre, a box filled with the translucent light of the north. Three levels were established. The highest for dreaming. The garden level for living. The deepest level for sleeping.

For dreaming, we created a cloud at the highest point. A library constructed with high walls of light diffused through large translucent glass. With northern light for reading and writing, thinking and feeling.

For living, the garden with southern light, sunlight. A space that is all garden, with transparent walls that bring together inside and outside.

And for sleeping, perhaps dying, the deepest level. The bedrooms below, as if in a cave. Once again, the cave and the cabin. Dreaming, living, dying. The house of the poet.

Location: Avda. Ilustración, 40, Urbanización Montecanal, Zaragoza
Client: Luis Moliner Lorente
Surface area: 216 sqm

Architect: Alberto Campo Baeza
Collaborating architects: Ignacio Aguirre López, Emilio Delgado Martos
Structure: María Concepción Pérez Gutiérrez
Rigger: José Miguel Moya
Constructor: Construcciones Moya Valero, Rafael Moya, Ramón Moya

The post Casa Moliner by
Alberto Campo Baeza appeared first on Dezeen.

Delicate glazing fits around a bulky concrete structure at this hilltop house in Toledo by Spanish architect Alberto Campo Baeza (+ slideshow).

With views stretching out towards the Sierra de Gredos mountains, the two-storey Casa Rufo was designed by Alberto Campo Baeza as “a hut on top of the cave”, with a sequence of ground-floor rooms overshadowed by a long and narrow rooftop podium.

A concrete canopy, described by the architect as like “a table with ten legs”, shelters a small section of the podium and is surrounded by frameless glazing, creating a transparent room that is visible from the surrounding garden.

A staircase leads directly down from here to the living and dining room below, where the architect has placed the entrance to the house.

Rectangular cutaways transform some of the rooms into open-air courtyards. Two bedrooms face in towards these spaces, rather than out through the exterior walls.

Another opening reveals the location of a parking garage, while a smaller void functions as a rooftop swimming pool.

A row of poplar trees was planted behind the house, helping to screen it from views from the north-east.

Alberto Campo Baeza lives and works in Madrid, and also teaches architecture at the Madrid School of Architecture. His other projects include Offices for Junta de Castilla y León, a glazed office block concealed behind a sandstone enclosure.

Other Spanish houses on Dezeen include a converted stone stable and a residence that looks like a cluster of concrete cubes. See more houses in Spain »

Photography is by Javier Callejas.

Here’s a project description from the architect:

Rufo House, Toledo

The brief was to build a house on a hilltop outside of the city of Toledo. The hill faces southwest and offers interesting views of the distant horizon, reaching the Gredos Mountains to the northeast.

The site measures 60 x 40 m and has a 10-metre slope. At the highest point, we established a longitudinal podium, 6 meters wide and 3 meters high, that extends from side to side the entire length of the site. All of the house’s functions are developed inside of this long box, the length of concrete creating a long horizontal platform up high, as if it were a jetty that underlines the landscape with tremendous force.

This long concrete box is perforated and cut into, conveniently creating objects and voids to appropriately accommodate the requested functions (courtyard + covered courtyard, kitchen, living room-dining room-hall, bedroom, courtyard + courtyard, bedroom, garage, swimming pool, bedroom, courtyard).

In this distribution the living-dining room opens to the garden while the bedrooms face onto courtyards open to the sky and garden, affording them the necessary privacy. The stairway connecting the upper floor is situated in the area behind the living-dining room.

On top of the podium and aligned with it, a canopy with ten concrete columns with a square section support a simple flat roof, as if it were a table with ten legs. Under this roof, behind the columns, is a delicate glass box. To protect the views of the house from the back, a simple row of poplars were planted.

Once again, the theme of the hut on top of the cave. Once again, the theme of a tectonic architecture over a stereotomic architecture.

Location: Urbanización Montesión, Calle Brezo parcela nº 158. Toledo
Client: Rufino Delgado Mateos
Area: house: 200 sqm, patios 120 sqm

Architect: Alberto Campo Baeza
Collaborating architects: Raúl Martinez, Petter Palander
Structure: Juan Antonio Domínguez (HCA)
Surveyor: José Miguel Agulló
Builder: José Miguel Agulló

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Alberto Campo Baeza appeared first on Dezeen.

A garden snakes between the cedar-clad walls of this house in Osaka by Japanese architects Arbol Design (+ slideshow).

Arbol Design chose to enclose the garden within the high walls that surround the property to keep the spaces out of view from tall apartment buildings close by.

“There was concern about overlooking from the park and the apartments nearby, plus views within the site to the buildings outside,” said the architects. “We solved it by encircling the entire house with a wall.”

Designed for a retired couple, the single-storey wooden home stands out from the rendered concrete multi-storey apartment blocks in the Nishimikuni district of central Osaka.

The gravel garden planted with small trees winds around the bedroom at the front of the property, passes the dining room and tatami area then ends beside the bathroom at the back.

Its path is broken by a small portion of corridor in the centre of the plot that connects the front section of the house to the rear. Large windows along the route flood the rooms with natural light and allow the foliage to be appreciated without venturing outside.

The perimeter wall blocks all views of the neighbourhood so only the sky is visible from inside, though thin vertical slits allow glimpses beyond.

The same cedar cladding used externally also covers the floor, while other indoor finishes are kept neutral. Entry to the home is through an inconspicuous door off the side of the partly covered front driveway.

We’ve posted a couple of Japanese houses already this week. One features a staircase that folds around a double-height bookcase and another includes playground swings that can be hung inside or out.

See more Japanese houses »
See more architecture and design in Osaka »

Keep reading for more information from the designers:

House in Nishimikuni

What are one-storied houses like in the centre of cities? The surroundings and privacy matter, or how to use the outer space of the house. We pursued simplicity and richness the most.

By decreasing the number of the rooms as much as possible, we made it possible to use rich materials in the spaces. Furthermore, take away unnecessary stories and let in the natural sunshine instead.

This house is designed for a retired couple, proposing a new style of one-storied house located in the centre of Osaka city.

There was concern about overlooking from the park and the apartments nearby, plus views within the site to the buildings outside. We solved it by encircling the entire house with a wall.

You could see a beautiful colour contrast in green from planting within the site and in blue from the sky. We created a S-shaped garden across the house so you could enjoy it anywhere, and it is as if you were in the forest watching a river running!

This one-storey house surrounded with lined-up condominiums has created a new concept of richness, in the concept of not needing to be chained to thoughts about how large the ground space is, or how convenient it is.

The post House in Nishimikuni
by Arbol Design appeared first on Dezeen.

American architect Eric Fisher claims to have built the world’s largest residential cantilever with this house in Pittsburgh that protrudes by 16 metres to hover over the roof of a glass factory (+ slideshow).

Designed to house the owners of the factory, the Corten steel-clad Emerald Glass House was completed by Fisher Architecture in 2011, but the studio recently submitted it for entry into the Guinness Book of World Records.

The impressive cantilever forms the uppermost floor of the four-storey residence, which is set into a hillside to the south of the city. “It floats above the owner’s glass manufacturing facility like a foreman’s shack,” said Fisher.

The architect used Corten steel, mesh and exposed steel columns to create an industrial aesthetic, then added large areas of glazing to recognise the trade of the house’s residents.

This includes a fully glazed facade, designed as a beacon for visitors to the factory. Behind the facade, a living room occupies the whole cantilevered space, allowing the structure to function as a giant viewfinder.

Glass also surrounds the interior surfaces of the house’s concrete block core and was used for staircase balustrades and a breakfast counter in the kitchen.

Other cantilevered houses we’ve featured on Dezeen include a Seattle house with a twisted top floor and a house that extends over a river in Wales.

See more cantilevered buildings »
See more American houses on Dezeen »

Photography is by the architect, apart from where otherwise indicated.

Here’s a project description from Eric Fisher:

Emerald Art Glass House

The Emerald Art Glass House is a site-sensitive, cantilevered home for the owners of a glass company. This is contextual design: Located on Pittsburgh’s South Side slopes, it floats above the owner’s glass manufacturing facility like a foreman’s shack.

The home’s industrial forms and Corten steel siding relate to the factory below while a living roof connects the house visually to the verdant slopes beyond. In a building this public, it’s possible to make larger references: Pittsburgh’s neighbourhoods are cut off from one another both geographically and culturally. The new horizontally massed house and the US Steel tower, Pittsburgh’s tallest building, are Corten steel peers. Together, they establish a small but meaningful new dialogue between the residential slopes and the commercial city centre.

Glass products are featured throughout, celebrating the owner’s craft: A radical, north-facing, butted, “Greenheat” radiant-heated glass facade functions from outside as a sign for the glass factory and from inside as a view catcher. A unique, glass rain-screen system clads a concrete block core. Inside the core, a glass stairway winds its way from the ground floor to the kitchen.

And it’s green: 21st century architects must learn to recycle space in the same way we recycle our garbage – finding value in waste. Here, we are putting to use the unused space above the owner’s warehouse in this dense urban neighbourhood. Recycled materials are used throughout. As well, geothermal well-generated forced air complements the radiant heated floors and glass.

Extending three times farther than nearby Falling Water, the Emerald Art Glass House may be the world’s longest residential cantilever. As Jean Paul Sartre once wrote, ‘The human body always extends across the tool that it utilises: it is at the end of the telescope, which shows me the stars; it is my adaptation to those tools. When a structure cantilevers in a daring way, we imagine ourselves leaning out over the space below, which explains why it moves us. This is the thing with feathers, an object that disrupts daily life just enough to make one believe that there is maybe more to life than the humdrum.

The post Emerald Art Glass House
by Fisher Architecture appeared first on Dezeen.

German photographer Roland Halbe has taken new photographs of Casa Klotz, a rural beach house in Chile by architect Mathias Klotz (+ slideshow).

The two-storey wooden house is located beside the seafront in Tongoy, north of Santiago. It was designed by Mathias Klotz in 1991 for his mother and was the Chilean architect’s first major project.

Clad with white-painted timber boards, the rectangular house has barely any glazing on its southern facade, while its northern elevation features large windows and balconies that face out across the beach.

The house centres around a large double-height living room with a chequerboard of floor-to-ceiling glazing stretching across one wall. Wooden decking covers the floor and extends out to a terrace suspended 30 centimetres above the ground.

The rest of the house is arranged with a symmetrical layout, with a ground-floor dining room and small bedroom that mirror a larger bedroom and bathroom area. Two identical bedrooms are located upstairs and both open out to recessed balconies.

The entrance to the house is a ramped bridge that angles up from the ground.

Since completing Casa Klotz, Mathias Klotz has worked on a string of houses and other buildings. Recent projects include Casa 11 Mujeres, a holiday home for a family with 11 daughters.

See more architecture in Chile »

See more photography by Roland Halbe on Dezeen or on the photographer’s website.

Here’s a project description from Mathias Klotz:

Casa Klotz/Klotz House

The Klotz house is in the vicinity of Tongoy on a beach situated 400 km to the north of Santiago. The bay is 24 km long and has very few buildings along it. The outline of the cove is recognisable from a distance, as is the coastal mountain range in the background.

The powerful contrast between the house and its surroundings is what defines the building. The work consists of a rectangle box 6 x 6 x 12 m which sits upon the ground and rises 30 cm above it.

The outside presents a blind face which serves as the access over a curved bridge. The opposite façade, facing the sea, has large openings.

The ground plan has two clearly defined sections on the first floor. The narrowest, of two meters, is for the entry, the stairs, the bathroom and a small bedroom. The larger, of four meters is for the main bedroom, the kitchen-dining room and the double-height living room. On the second floor, the bedrooms are set back from the sea facing façade to allow space for terraces. The staircase and bridge that connect the bedrooms continue the concept of the corridor or gallery on the first floor.

The fine white carpentry, the openings in the wall, the added and subtracted features, the interplay between the proportions, the horizontal lines of the wooden sealing fillets on the facades are all touches aimed at producing a detailed close-up effect in contrast with the panorama of the surroundings and the abstraction of the building itself.

Client: Isabel Germain
Construction: Mathias Klotz
Engineers: Jaime Frerk
Construction date: 1991
Completion date: 1991
Terrain surface: 5.700 sqm
Built surface: 99 sqm
Location: Playa grande, Tongoy, Chile

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photographed by Roland Halbe appeared first on Dezeen.