Floatheca Rh of the Choetheque Series

 

This Choe_ project reworks notions evident in previous projects of the same series, moving from ortho-canonical shapes to polygonal planar forms, a common geometrical reference for the following three works to be eventually published here periodically. Key gesture remains the architectural reworking of means of vertical movement as the sole structural elements supporting the building.

For this Choe_ project the characteristic volumetric "legs" feature here a "foot." In other words, the two stairs that lead down from the enclosed volume of interior space to the open ground are here visually detached from the slab of the main habitable floor. Unlike the massing partí of Schottheke, where slanted volumes containing stairs were fully attached to the habitable parallelepiped above - by allowing the slab to rest on them through an increased top-perimeter interface - here the stairs are slightly elongated in length as to allow for this visual separation. The diagonal prism housing each of the stairs is thus visually accentuated, and its diagonal covering (roof-slab) that follows the inclination of the stairs is made explicit as a morphological feature. A short 'kink' turns the base of the legs horizontally forming a foot, as aforementioned.

Rephrasing, these two limps are extended and separated from the underside of the main volume, a distinctive characteristic setting this specific architectonic iteration aside from other projects of the same sub-series. The top common surface, the interface between the Choe_ leg (a pode) and the main volume, is reduced, thus the structural base of the Choe_ leg is reduced to a minimum. This lends an intense kinetic presence to the project and actually announces "ambulate architecture." A third identical appendage, the stair to the roof terrace, extends upwards in reverse, mirroring horizontally the visual idiom. This top-stair addendum formulates a head for the entire composition, introducing the notion of a kinetic periscope.

Actually here we have a dipod with a crutch, the vertical lift, a cylindrical concrete volume. The entire project can be viewed as a dipod. If Schottheke emphasized diagonal levitators occupying the space of the stair when needed, here we have a conventional ascenseur. However, on the side of the two downward linking stairs, ramps follow the stair slope. Due to its steepness, this surface is not used as a pedestrian ramp, it is more of a visual gesture amplifying the space of vertical movement and improving diagonal interior perspectives. This is important as the void of the stair upwards has become minimal due to the elongation of the stair length and because this void does not extend to the entire length of the stair - as it did for example with Schottheke.

However the possibility remains, to use the slanting surfaces for the transportation of large household goods or other items that are not appropriate to be loaded in the vertical passenger elevator.

The monocoque structural partí of reinforced concrete in-situ construction is undone partially through the visual separation of walls from slabs. The perimeter linear outlines of slabs are made explicit in the facades through a shadow-line. Vertical surfaces are treated with a rhomboidal pattern that consists of systematic reveals, shadow-lines left on the concrete surface by the actual formwork over the casting process. Individual openings appear as puncturing this pattern at varied increments, repeating, another seemingly random pattern of distributed rhombs.

Programmatically we have a house for a bachelor; an extended studio that evolved as a freestanding pavilion. We may consider the structure as a one-bedroom bungalow, with exaggerated loggia spaces (covered but not enclosed) and an interior space defined by heavy boundaries and linked to the non-enclosed yet sheltered segments of the house. With Schottheke, we had to introduce entry doors at ground level, before one reaches the stairs, at the lowest level, and at the spatial end of the scheme. Here with Floatheca Rh we have open-air stairs while the interior space is enclosed at the main floor level, after the stairs. Access to the top landing, past the upward stair, is entirely outdoor and not controlled by inhabitants. Actually the terrace remains inaccessible, due to the height difference between the stair landing and the roof-slab of the apartment. This characteristic emphasizes the limited observatory of this top landing; shaped as a cyclop's head, lending a quasi-Jurrasic aesthetic and appeal to the neo-brutalist ensemble.

 

 

Floatheca Rh of the Choetheque Series
Location : Gualeguaychu, Pampas de Provincia de Entre Ríos, Argentina.
Aristotheke Eutectonics, æ®: Office of Architecture, Research and Design.
Text, Design, Renders, 3D-Modeling: Aristotelis Dimitrakopoulos (AFD).
Team Credits
Photographic Editing and Axonometrics: Maria Roussaki, Ivana Bosnjak, Aggeliki Giombre, AFD. Drawing: Vaso Gkioka, Maria Roussaki, Angela Giannakopoulou, AFD. Maquette: María Díaz Rodríguez, Alberto Lopez Jímenez.
Maquette Photography: AFD. Maquette Photographic Editing: Persefoni Mavromanolaki, AFD.