Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Curtain Wall House by Shigeru Ban








The extreme audacity of the Curtain Wall House (1995), designed by Shigeru Ban for himself, shows a surprising, simple and beautiful amalgam of old and new, combining contemporary materials with new interpretations of traditional Japanese styles.

The main body of the house sits against the inside corner of the plot and grows from the ground floor up to two upper floors. The ground floor has been left open, public space ceded to the street and serves as parking space for the house. On the first floor are the service and social areas, such as the kitchen and living room, while the upper floor is reserved for the private rooms.

That core was built so that it withdrew from the perimeter of the house, resulting in a large two0-story terrace. It is the perimeter of the terrace which guides the curtain that serves as an enclosure. The curtain covers two floors, enclosing an interior space and revealing an outdoor space.

Behind the curtain several sliding glass walls create a private and isolated domestic space, ensuring air and water tightness and providing some soundproofing.



Concept

An architectural curtain wall is an outer skin that covers the building without performing a structural function. The curtain wall effecticely hangs from the main load-bearing structure. This work has brought the concept of the curtain wall to extremes.
The curtain is an architectural element associated with traditional Japanese design elements such as shoji screens and fusuma, the doors common in traditional Japanese houses.

The utopian curtains Shigeru Ban uses are a simple solution, architectural and artistic. It operates for ventilation, is aesthetically seductive and poetically allows the natural flow of air. The interior and exterior can be merged into one comfortable space for the people, giving rise to some experiences within the habitat that are very difficult to achieve within a city - especially a city as large and populous as the Japanese capital.






en.wikiarquitectura.com

No comments:

Post a Comment