I wrote before about the madness of placing a column in front of a window, and how only a genius could make it look good. This week, I’m looking at a similar kind of madness:
A house that places a stair between a window and a view.
Casa Poli, by Pezo von Ellrichshausen, reveals something I think is missing in the way we are designing our buildings. That is the notion that just because we can, doesn’t mean we must.
Not every window needs to provide view, daylight, ventilation, solar gains, and connection to the outside all at once. Sometimes the best architectural decision is not to make an opening bigger, but it is to decide what each opening is actually for.
And that’s what this issue is all about.
I’m also continuing the Sunday night studio sessions.
Last week I had a technical hiccup, and I’ll write briefly about what happened at the end of this issue. But I still enjoyed the format enormously, and I know it is worth continuing.
The next session is this Sunday at 21:30 CET.
Hope you can join me.
Please enjoy, and as always, thank you for your support.
The Sketch: The Stairs Between a Window and a Room
Casa Poli by Pezo von Ellrichshausen
The Thought: Intentional Windows
Why some windows should be more equal than othersThe Work: The first time I had to decide what a window was for
The challenges of re-thinking windowsSunday Night Studio Sessions: Kick-Off!
What went wrong, and what I’m changing
1. The Sketch
The Stairs Between a Window and a Room
Before looking at Casa Poli, it would never have occurred to me to place a staircase across the sea view from the bedrooms.
It sounds like a mistake and yet it works beautifully.
Casa Poli by Pezo von Ellrichshausen
Original photo from Arquitectura Viva
The stair does not simply connect floors. It creates a setback between the opening and the room. The bedroom still has a great view and receives plenty of light, but not directly. First, there is depth. And in that depth there is movement, shadow. A small delay between the exterior and the interior which works as a buffer zone.
First and second floors of Casa Poli with servant spaces highlighted
It immediately made me think of Louis Kahn.
Kahn often gave thickness to the edge of buildings. This way walls become more than just a boundary. They could contain stairs, storage, structure, services, windows, benches, or places to sit.
In Kahn’s terms, the servant spaces were not leftovers. They were allowed to shape the served spaces. Casa Poli does something similar. The service spaces serve and shape the rooms, but it also improve the windows.
In Casa Poli, the façade is not a single line. It behaves more like a double edge. Sometimes the room begins immediately behind the opening. Sometimes the stair, a recess, or a servant space sits between the opening and the room.
This is how the house creates small nooks where the exterior climate is negotiated before it reaches the interior. The boundary between inside and outside is not erased. It is thickened.
This is the lesson I take from Casa Poli.
Sometimes the best window is not the one that gives the most direct view. Sometimes the best window can have something in front of it.
A stair, a wall, a recess… shadow.
Not to weaken the relationship with the outside, but to make it more intentional.
The stairs do not block the window, they edit it.
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