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.