Invisible House

The Invisible House in sequence.

Project details

• Project Name: The Invisible House
• Client: International competition in Manchester
• Project Type: Single family house
• Principal Designer/s: Annarita Emili
• Design Team: Barbara Pellegrino, Massimo Ilardi
• Date of commencement of project: 1999
• Site Area: 500 sqm
• Built-up Area: 100 sqm

External view.

My steps start to become heavy, after two hours walk I decide to take a rest. Around me the landscape is desolated, sand dunes move following the direction of the wind pushing them. I take an old map from my pocket, trying to get oriented, but it's impossible, the site changes continuously. Suddenly the ground keeps moving, all around a city starts to take form. Building move up and down. The scene that appear to me is a kind of instable suspension between before and after, a sign of a change of location that the spectator can read following in the tracks it left. Roads are desert, try to get some information, but there are no people around to ask.

I approach to a two levels building one level bared in the ground, the second moves up.

I come nearby to have a look inside: the space is well organized and comfortable, in the centre four pillars contain the lift to go upstairs. The distribution of the domestic spaces is obtained by moving the panels in a flexible and functional way, everything seems to be integrated, so not to produce interferences. In front of me two kids are playing on a sofa, while their mom is busy with her computer moving the panels. Her gesture and her words seem to move with the walls in the house. All I see appears to me as a pure absence: visible and invisible hide and emerge through the gesture, the words and the shapes in front of me. Pleased for having catched the essence of vision I decide to change image, and soon astonished I realize that there's nothing to look at.

Internal view.

Project

Imagine finding yourself in a landscape where the predominant colours shift from yellow to light brown, where the only existing material is sand or dry clay, and where the only variation is determined by the difference in the levels or amounts.

Imagine finding yourself in front of a place characterized by strongly contrasting elements: bright light, defined shadows, total darkness, torrid heat, intense cold etc.

Now imagine inhabiting this place without references, without variations, without pause, and thinking of a living solution that will guarantee your survival.

Finally consider the chance for the existence of this place, given that that the desertification process still in act, will reach the south of our peninsula.

View on the stair.

Thus imagination changes into a contingent problem that will soon interest us very closely.

Given that and expecting an imminent change we propose a new kind of residence: the semi-duplex.

Thus we think to a universally applicable accommodation type as a refuge with all the characteristics of an hipogean architecture (typical of hot countries). At the same time, through an automated system it transforms itself into a two level exposed residence that will thus be able to show its true identity.

During this transformation you will move through spatial conditions which are contrasting as well as the elements that characterize the location.

Visible and invisible, below-above, exposed-and not, closed-opened are terms which underline places in which terms such as material and transparent, heavy and light, dark and light, of immersed and emergent etc. but, as happens in all our projects, no one condition prevails over the others.

This is an 80sm house characterized by a simple elementary form (steel structure, plastic laminated walls, structural glass ceiling). It is a structure realized with basic materials as well as essential is the surroundings in which it is located.

Section.

Thanks to this idea the roof is at the same time foundation, element which acts as a camouflage with the surroundings, as well as line aligned with the horizon, plan emerging with its own essence.

By sliding the translucent walls create different spaces according to different needs: a single open space or nine spaces each one nine square metres. The ceiling, even glazed, make the light enter underground and where the pillars arise it is characterized by a double reticular steel beam, to allow for the sliding of the panels. The covering is made of steel as well as the four support pillars. Its width is only 10cm, even if it contains a light layer of earth or sand. The hipogean space is divided into nine small areas and is composed of containers: a volume for the night zone, two volumes for utilities.

In the centre of the house we decided to set the computer room from which all the systems of automation will be managed. And in front of the computer room an elevator allows for the easy transport of objects and furnishing elements.

Credits

• Text: Annarita Emili
• Photographs: Photomontage Annarita Emili, altro_studio