ANTONIO CARLOS SIZA HOUSE
Double House and Garden
Project 3 is a project in which students have to design their own idea of a double house with incorporating ideas from the precedent studies, which in my case is the Antonio Carlos Siza House by Alvaro Siza. The house is to be inhabited by an art collector and another people of our own preferences. I choose one of the art collector’s family members to be the other inhabitant of the house so that they can share some elements of the house. A garden should be incorporated within the house as a public or private area. Another compulsory element to be put into the house scheme is a gallery space for the art collector to showcase his collected artworks.
The Double House
The house that I designed incorporated some Siza’s idea from the precedent studies. One is the use of geometry in determining the overall outline of the house. As how Siza did, I designed the outline to be a rectangle with a triangle that cut through the middle of the rectangle. This triangular shape is to be designed with an internal courtyard as the garden space within it.
Apart from that, I also incorporated Siza’s idea of having a central element within the house so that all the programs of the house are positioned around it. The main central element of this house is the central courtyard. As can be seen from the floor plans, all the programs of the house, the living, dining, kitchen, bedrooms and all services are positioned around this central courtyard. Plus, the circulation of the house is articulated around the courtyard too.
There is also an idea of creating a boundary between the public and private spaces within the house. Siza used the internal courtyard as the separator between the two spaces but in my design, I use different approach. I divided the public and private spaces by using different floors for different purposes. The gallery and the display area at the entrance is more public as people from the street are welcomed to have a view of the artworks and going further back to the house upper floor, the space is considered semi-private. Going down to the lower level of the house is the public spaces where all private rooms of the house are situated.
Image of the model of the Ground Level of the house.
Image of the model of the Basement Level of the house.
Siza distinguished the programs of his design with applying different volume heights. For the major programs higher volumes are used and the programs are connected by lower volumes. As for my design, I took the same approach by designing all the services with higher volumes and all are connected by lower volumes that articulated around the courtyard. This is shown on the 1:100 model.
I also implemented the idea of an axis of view to my design by creating an axis that cuts through the house. This axis provides view of the cityscape from the entrance of the house through the window on the living area.
