© Sergio Pirrone
The 60 sqm plot is located in the city s center commercial street. A street that in the last 15 years has transformed its architecture, from residential, with traditional multi-colored one-storey houses, to small 4-storey apartment buildings, with the possibility of one meter overhang on the public road. How could we create an harmonious transition between the old existing, the new and the two existing buildings on the sides of the plot. Above all, as we could have conveyed through a 4-storey vertical façade, the same joy that was in traditional architecture, combining it with a new program.
© Sergio Pirrone
Gallery of Casa Celestina / Ramos Castellano Arquitectos
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Gallery of Concrete Shell House / IKAWAYA Architects
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© Akinobu Kawabe
Inside the “hole”, we created garden with plants that relates to its adjacent room; a “sunken garden” at the basement, an “acorn garden” on the ground floor and “dining garden” on the second floor. By “breaking” the top of the shell, we placed a “sky garden” at the rooftop. All the dispersed gardens are linked with an exterior stairway.
© Akinobu Kawabe
The “shell” incorporates the exterior insulation method. Thus, the heat capacity of the concrete wall enables a moderate change in interior temperature. Also, by exposing both exterior and interior concrete walls, it forms a sense of continuity throughout the house. The box culvert structure system was applied to maintain such sense of continuity and eliminates partition walls perpendicular to the tunnel space. In the end, a “strong” but also “embracing” concrete structure was achieved