The power of the mind

Hi there,

These past weeks I explored two very different houses: RCR’s Casa Horizonte and Junya Ishigami’s House with Plants. One is rural, stretched across sixty meters. The other is urban, barely ten meters wide. One frames the horizon with steel boxes. The other turns soil and greenery into the very structure of the home.

Ishigami’s idea of a “house within a house,” where plants define space and people adapt around them, made me wonder: what if RCR had applied the same logic? Imagine each block of Casa Horizonte working independently, at least thermally, with circulation spaces left unconditioned.

And that leads us to this issue’s theme: comfort and expectation.

Comfort and expectation.

These two are inseparable. Imagine you buy an expensive bottle of wine and it tastes like any other. You would feel disappointed, not because the wine is bad, but because the experience does not match the expectation set by the price tag.

The same happens with buildings. In a controlled indoor environment, as soon as the temperature strays from what you expect, you notice it. Unless something distracts you, discomfort then becomes the focus. This is why it is so difficult to keep 100% of a population comfortable inside a mechanically conditioned building. Everyone expects the system to match their own precise demands.

It also explains why we tolerate much more variation outdoors. When we sit on a terrace in spring, we accept cooler air or a light breeze. Our expectations are lower and the reward we feel by being outside are higher, so we perceive the space as comfortable even with wider swings in temperature.

Adaptive Opportunities

In this week’s video about comfort I describe two scenarios. In the first, you are in a space where you want to be, with options to adapt to your environment. In the second, you are forced to wait in a space where you do not want to be, with very few options to change your conditions. The second situation always feels worse.

Adaptive opportunities are simply the ability to make a change. Opening a window, adding a layer of clothing, moving to the shade. You do not need to act on them every time. Just knowing that you could adapt already increases your tolerance and widens your comfort band.

Adaptive comfort strategies

(link to full video)

La Casa Horizonte

Casa Horizonte

Photo by Hisao Suzuki

I absolutely love RCR. When Carme Pigem came to give a lecture in Brussels, I went like a proud fan. Casa Horizonte, completed in 2007, has always been for me a pillar of their work. It clearly inspired their 2008 competition entry for the Soulages Museum.

Soulages Museum

Photo by Hisao Suzuki

But preparing this newsletter pushed me to be more critical. The house is sixty meters long. That is extraordinary for a family home. Yet the children’s bedrooms measure only two point three meters wide. The lack of flexibility becomes clear. Once you draw the floor plan, circulation cuts through the rooms in unusual ways. I even sketched one of the children’s bedrooms from the plan and found myself puzzled.

Casa Horizonte I Floor plan

Source: Arquitectura viva

The bed seems to rise from the steps, which is a bold and beautiful choice, but you need a client who loves it as much as the architect. The corridor is even more unusual. It slices through the center of the room.

Casa Horizonte I children’s bedroom

Source: my sketchbook!

I still admire this project deeply. It remains one of my favorites. Yet this exercise showed me that admiration should not block criticism. The very things that make Casa Horizonte so special (the long horizon, the rigid geometry, the uncompromising plan) are also the things that restrict its comfort and flexibility.

Casa Horizonte I children’s bedroom - studies

Source: my sketchbook!

Closing Thoughts

Comfort is not only about temperature, light, or acoustics. It is also about what we expect from a space. Buildings like Casa Horizonte remind us that architecture can surprise us, sometimes delightfully!

What do you think? I’m sure you can think of situations when you felt exactly this! and if not, I’m sure if you stay conscious about it, you will!