For the past couple of weeks I started working on a new renovation project. It’s a project that had me little baffled at the beginning as the house was renovated only 8 years ago. Once I started analyzing it a little bit deeper though, I started to realize why my clients required a new renovation.
Throughout my analysis I identified 3 problems:
Problem 1 I Barrier vs Buffer
During the renovation project they extended the ground floor towards the south facing garden with a “veranda”. Unfortunately, this veranda ended up having a height below the legal minimum of 2.40 meters. The problem this brings is not a legal one, but it is one of comfort. The resulting space is not an inviting one, so the veranda is rarely used and as such I suspect it is working as a sort of barrier or limit between the inside and out. This is the exact opposite of what I like to achieve with my architecture where I like creating buffer spaces which blur these limits.
Problem 2 I Toilet on façade
The façade is 6.5 m long. It is not narrow by any means, but it is not wide either. Having the toilette placed to this façade area has created a problem. Not so much in the ground floor as it has on the first floor.
The problem is when we stack the above toilette onto this one, which is exactly what was done originally. This eliminates the possibility of having 2 bedrooms facing the street. When the renovation works took place 8 years ago, this issue wasn’t addressed which created yet another problem…
Problem 3 I Circulation
The location of the toilette forced a new problem. That is the access to this toilette which is against the façade. one of the biggest rooms of the house was then deprived of all privacy as one had to walk through it in order to access the toilette. The same is true for the staircase which lands in this “intermediary room”.
Watch the full video here!
Throughout this video I used morpholio to develop the different design iterations. I actually love this app because it allows me to design on the GO without needing to take all my tools with me. Here are a few stills from the video.
(For a limited time only)
The article on daylight is still going through review. I’m still not sure if the new one (which will carry a modest price) will fully replace this one or simply work as an expansion. I know it is going to be a toolkit for designing with daylight and until I get something I can say I’m proud of, I will not offer it for sale. Until then this article is still available for free, so go ahead and get your copy while you can!
SHORTS of the week!
I loved working on these shorts! I really had fun, and I feel I made good use of one of my favorite quotes:
“the simple expression of complex thought”.
Donald Judd
Coming up!
I received a (friendly) comment addressing the fact that I don’t tend to dress in black and I had fun with this!
As it is well known, architects do tend to dress in black. So much so, that there’s actually a book out there about the fact.
In there, we can find the quote by Arno Brandlhuber that explains:
“Architects wear black to mourn our projects which will never see the light of day”.
I love this quote and it nicely cues in my next video which will be about my top 5 unbuilt projects, so stay tunned!
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If you’re working on a project where you think I could provide you some input, please do not hesitate to book a meeting with me. I try and keep a few slots open a week, but the idea is for these meetings to be very intensive.
As always, thank you all for your support,
M.Arch. Pedro Augspach
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