Inhabited Codes (2015)

Collective Housing

Sestao, Spain

The circle + square house shows how a building project can represent the dialectic of unity and variety as the same time as providing one-room weekend retreat in a once-rural setting. The building is an essay in minimal structure, geometry, proportion, and the effects of transparency and reflection.

This dialectical is clearly expressed in the shape composition. It combines a rigid transparent single square box with varying circular cylinders of different sizes inside of it, which take on the significance of chess pieces. The square is held by a 10×10 metre grid. The serving circles containing bathroom, kitchen and entrance, run along freely inside the box determining the serviced spaces: living room, bedroom and lobby; there isn’t any partition or door.

Constructive elements also grow following the same rules. The square holds a single storey structure defined by a precast concrete floor and roof slabs supported by a steel skeleton frame of beams and nine IPE supports. The transparent façade is made of single panes of glass spanning from floor to ceiling, fastened to the structural system by steel mullions. The serving circles are materialized by simple cylindrical concrete walls.

As a result, the user can appreciate a fluid complex space created by using simple shapes, in which landscape and natural lighting permeates all the floor. The house opens the interior to its natural surroundings to an extreme degree.

It pretends a single but varied space with a clearly understa