Buildings with containers.

Why do we find so many right angles in buildings? One reason is that human beings feel comfortable inhabiting rectangular and symmetrical volumes, simply supported on the ground. Another reason why the vast majority of buildings have rectangular volumes is that the shape of a building has a decisive impact on its cost. Buildings with complicated, organic and irregular shapes are, a priori, more expensive due to their complexity.

How can we design buildings with contained costs when high formal complexity or innovative structural solutions are needed? In Amusement Logic, we’re working on an architectural project that faces this challenge and manages to solve it satisfactorily.

The building that we’re presenting to you is one of rapid construction, based on prefabricated modules, whose layout adapts to the environmental needs, in order to respond to visuals and orientations. The final image is resolved with a skin that protects them from the weather.

The building’s shape responds to the client’s requirements to appropriate the outer space. The homes are projected beyond their own limits, they seem to visually expand sideways and upwards in a set of symmetries and mirrors that create however, a feeling of harmony and balance. This strategy allows the building to incorporate the surrounding outer space, providing large terraces with unbeatable views, in contact with nature.

This formal complexity establishes visual play, both from the viewpoint of the observer located outside the building and from the inhabitant’s perspective, which gives the building its own recognizable character. For the building’s residents, its volumes allow a high degree of privacy and as they are conveniently positioned, they frame and take advantage of different orientations and privileged views.

It’s an ideal building for locating in an environment of great landscaping richness. Its façade shows agile lines, which reflect the building’s ability to offer its inhabitants the best way to open up and admire their surroundings.