Jun 11, 2009
Box House | Alan Chu & Cristiano Kato
Architects:Alan Chu & Cristiano Kato
Photographs©Djan Chu
It is a small construction with an equally simple program: A caretaker’s house of a property on an island on the North coast of the State of São Paulo, Brazil. The site, at 100 meters above sea level, next to two enormous rocks, already had the old caretaker’s house, one-story house with stone walls and clay roof tiles.The new building has 2 floors, a white suspended box, where the bedroom is and it is possible to see the continent and the São Sebastião Channel. Under it, at street level, are the living room, kitchen and bathroom.
Drawings courtesy Alan Chu & Cristiano Kato
The wood used on some doors and windows, staircase, shelves and furniture are leftovers of material used to make scaffoldings and molds for the white box reinforced concrete structure.The 3.00 m x 5.00 m white box is supported on one side by an existing retaining wall and on the other by a wall built with stones, a characteristic of local constructions.
This movement shapes the other 3 spaces of the construction, the access yard, between the box and the retaining wall that curves following the parking lot ramp’s floor, the courtyard, between the box and the rock and the void created under the box, where the living room is.The impact caused by the image of concise volume, in comparison with the large rock’s amorphous exuberance, gives it a strange sensation.
During the work, the caretaker Zé Maria, still not content with his future living quarters, compared it with a can of sardines, a container as those he sees passing through the channel or even a cooler, like those used by beachgoers to carry beer.
Architects:Alan Chu & Cristiano Kato
Location:Ilhabela, Sao Paulo – Brazil
Design year:2008
Construction year 2008
Constructed area 36.00 sqm
Site area : 8,000.00 sqm
Photographs: Djan Chu
Dear representative of Architecture Buzz,
We are organizing the 3rd Advanced Architecture Contest under the topic THE SELF-SUFFICIENT CITY, envisioning the habitat of the future.
The aim of this international competition is to promote online discussion and research through which to generate insights and visions, ideas and proposals that help us envisage what the city and the habitat of the 21st century will be like.
The competition is open to architects, planners, designers and artists who want to contribute to progress in making the world more habitable by developing a proposal capable of responding to emerging challenges in areas such as ecology, information technology, socialization and globalization, with a view to enhancing the connected self-sufficiency of our cities.
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We have also enclosed a copy of the poster in two different definitions, print and web.
Thank you and Best regards
Marie Jacquinet
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3rd Advanced Architecture Contest
contact@advancedarchitecturecontest.org
http://www.advancedarchitecturecontest.org/
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