Casa A.R. - Beta Competition
Built space

A.R. House

Project description

With constant regard for the context and the user’s lifestyle, the project is the result of sequential steps taken towards a unitary look where the interior and exterior work together harmoniously. The town´s old houses with their street facing gables and exposed brick fences revealed the basis upon which our concept was defined: the archetypal shape of the gables and the exposed brick. The project is a collaborative one, between the author of the base project, arch. Rău Laura Alina, who established the volumetrics, orientation, withdrawals and arrangement of functions; respectively NOI studio, the authors of the execution project through which the technical and architectural details were solved. We also focused on the details needed in order to optimize energy consumption by fixing thermal bridges and integrating systems specific to passive houses such as activated surfaces or ventilation with heat recovery. Redrawing of the facades and the fence from the street was a separate theme for NOI studio by which we aimed to develop a common language from the concept’s point of view, perceived both from the outside and inside. In this sense, we withdrew the fence near the access, offering additional green space to the public area and at the same time, launching an invitation towards the private space. We adjusted the geometry of the main gable a little bit in order to give it the specific symmetry of the context. Focusing on the textural inheritance of the place, we chose to dematerialize the house’s gable and the fence in order to reveal the brick core, the leitmotif that extends the public space inwards towards the meeting spaces. As the interior brick blends with the oak texture, a material symbolically assigned to the family, the spaces of the house are conceptually distanced from the public sphere. As the dominance of the brick is replaced by wood, the privacy of interior spaces increases, reaching the point where the brick disappears completely in the family-exclusive areas. Black accents create subtle portals between functions, highlight relevant volumetric segments, articulate changes in plan and materiality and mark places of transformation, such as the fireplace or the music equipment. The white shell, perceived both on the inside and outside, covers the hard brick core with its wooden seeds in light and shadow play.

Author's presentation text

Andi-Alexandru Buftea – 2014, Timisoara Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, graduate. I made my first steps towards architecture during my study years, by my own and trough different collaborations making contact with various architecture and interior design programs, gradually building my experience and portfolio so I can later develop my own brand named NOI studio. A brand focused on the rigor of project compliance, material knowledge, technical details and working methods of craftsmen - with whom we usually work close - but also focused on a personal relationship with our beneficiaries. Arh. Rau Laura Alina Simona - I graduated the Faculty of Architecture in Timisoara in 2007 and, although I had a certain experience , I can only say that the real professional experience was obtained from 2009, after I started my own practice (Individual Bureau of Architecture). Although I worked on different types of projects (industrial architecture, restoration, urbanism), my first and one true love will remain the family homes. When you design a house for a certain family, you can dream with your eyes wide open and, for a certain period of time, you can become a member of the family, you can understand their lifestyle and you can try to adapt the project with their rithm.