The challenge of implementing the project in less than 2 months in a remote area led to the choice of dry and eco-friendly building materials such as laminated lumber for the roof and metal posts, which reduces the impact on the surrounding area. In order to integrate the landscape, the laminated bar roof functions as a pergola with support beams and slats set in different directions to allow the sun to penetrate and create different scenes throughout the day. The roof was installed as such to create the illusion of the structure floating on a plateau; the location was chosen precisely so that the structure did not protrude beyond the skyline and was integrated within the context of the height of the access bridge and the natural curves of the terrain.

The structure has rounded edges that mimic the organic shape of the lake, and is covered with mirrors that provide continuity to the landscape, creating the illusion of invisibility. The flexible and open architecture puts nature at the center of the project, assimilating the existing environment and enhancing it. The brise-soleil panels have colorful screens that mimic the surrounding landscape and can be adjusted to filter the sun at different times of day, thus creating different scenes and offering respite to guests. In addition to integrating and enhancing the environment, this project allows for direct interaction with both architecture and nature at the same time.

Name: Lake Annex
Location: Brazil
Architecture: Studio AG Arquitetura
Construction: 2016

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The architecture is like an emphasis on the words of a poem, a comma or a question mark, but not the poem itself. The poem is already written with pines, oaks, sweet acacia, fireflies, a road, a fence, a neighbor’s well, the earth, a garden, and a nightingale. Four concrete walls bring accents to the poem, standing out remarkably from the landscape; two of them carry the ground of the new hill created by the raising of the “sheet,” and two others frame the entrance, escorting guests into the house. The path is wide enough to walk alone in comfort, but narrow enough to keep out escorts. Guests enter a pilgrimage of solitude that leads to an old tree with such a significant presence that they had to distort the linearity of one of the walls with a slight curve to get past it. As you walk through the threshold of the tree, down several steps of hard pearl stone and open a heavy steel door, you see a concrete vault supporting weights of green “sheet” resting on it, giving the feeling of being inside a cold, dark, but strangely cozy cave. Concrete was chosen as the main material because of the dream of this new rock “melting” in its inevitable interaction with the forest, changing colors from gray to greens, blacks and yellows that would gradually be incorporated into the environment. The floor accentuates the fragrance of the wood, which is felt in the environment of the pines, providing a balance to the cold temperature of the concrete; and finally, the steel, which over time and in the rain, rusting, takes on an appearance reminiscent of tree bark.

In terms of spatial organization, the public areas on the left side of the house overlook the wooded ravine entirely, while the right side opens more timidly into the courtyard overlooking the treetops and the sky. It was important to have very few references to elements that relate to a particular point in time, so the refrigerator and appliances were hidden, the lighting was arranged very discreetly and only four basic materials were included: stone, wood, concrete and steel. It was very important to the client to retain the rugged and primitive atmosphere of being in the mountains.

Name: House on the Hill
Location: Morelia, Mexico
Architecture: HW-STUDIO
Construction: 2021
Total square footage: 250 m2

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The residential floor plan consists of nine zones separated by columns and diagonal elements, allowing the house to respond to different living situations. The central space, surrounded by four columns, is contradictory and visually connected to the other areas through the diagonal elements, but spatially feels detached from them. Structurally, in addition to the structural frame supporting the raised floor, a new type of wooden connection was developed using a steel plate. This allowed the load to be carried by area rather than by point. The four 240mm square columns demonstrate the strength of traditional farmhouses. As for sustainability, several problems were solved using solar power, using used batteries for electric cars and air conditioning under the floor with commercially available air conditioners.

The home was commissioned by architectural historian Noritani Nakatani. “The Millenium Village project is one of his major studies, begun after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, with a focus on eco-friendly villages. Since then, he has been thinking about moving away from Tokyo. He chose a site in a village in North Kanto and asked an architect, who was also part of the project, to design a house, resulting in the project becoming part of the “Millenium Village Project.” The client asked for the house to be built on stilts. Wood is a traditional building material in Japan, and a house on stilts is a practical typology of natural disasters such as flooding. However, the architect could not imagine a house on stilts with a nice first floor. Then the client showed him the farmhouses he had researched in Indonesia, which are wooden houses on stilts and have a simple structural frame reinforced with struts. In this way, the first floor has an open atmosphere, resulting in the area under the house being used as a public space.

When the client saw the structural model, he presented the architects with many images of the house: the Engawa (traditional Japanese veranda) from which to admire the landscape, the Kura (traditional Japanese storage), and the cabin of a spaceship as a study connecting these images. The sign on the facade, the cornice trim and the horizontal wooden crossbar from the shaker houses are also good examples. From the architect’s point of view, these images of the house seemed too arbitrary. However, these are things that come from the client’s accumulated experience, so the architects tried to integrate these dense spatial images into a solid diagonal structure. Through this process, the abstract structure gained a sense of time.

Name: Stilt House
Location: Kanto, Japan
Architecture: FT Architects
Construction: 2021
Total square footage: 82 m2

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In this project, a small meadow was built as an adaptation to the terrain. Elements such as the garage, water pool, walkway or sloping wall in the background, which follows it and cuts a steep slope, form a flat surface. And on top of it is a self-contained rectangular volume that accommodates a minimum of dwelling functions in a single open-plan space; to the south are the living room, dining room and recreation room; and inside the thick wall that separates us from the north are toilets and an entrance.

This architectural object changes its relationship with its surroundings as the seasons change in the filter of riverside vegetation that accompanies it, and because of the changing expression of the gaze that enjoys the sun-sheltered landscape. And, wary of the brevity of this restrained beauty, the refuge rests unsteadily on the ledge of the hill, like an owl ready to take off with the landscape imprinted on its retinas.

Name: Retina House
Location: Santa Pau, Spain.
Architecture: arnau estudi d’arquitectura
Construction: 2017

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