it was perhaps the most painful rehabilitation project. why (because) it had bad memories? there was no memory. there was a second hand house (there was a house on second hand), that the client have purchased for his permanent housing.
the building needed architecture desperately (the building desperately needed architecture). a twin house on a extensive blend of identical pairs of twins. when i say that it was in distress, the size of the group reached a state of calamity. a repertoire of clichés, a showcase of valuable materials (devalued by poor implementation) and other materials without any relation. the renew, in these case, is always more expensive than starting over and the result is never better. (work is work and it was not rejected). work is work, I did not reject
condition: justify the temptation of total demolition. and demolish only the inexplicable; reuse the said jewelry finishing reuse the ‘jewelry’ finishing. began the process of synthesizing the material, it was better to demolish and replace the expensive for the cheap.
“the sense that it should create in the material´s context, is beyond rules of composition, and also the sensitivity, the smell, the expression and the acoustic of the materials are just language elements that we have to use. the meaning comes when you can create on a architectural object the specific significance of certain materials that only we can feel in this singular object. “
the proposal is based on the removal – cleaning, homogenizing and giving meaning to what was there. we draw a courtyard embraced by a ramp, we formed a terrace that is leaning to the “vale-longo” landscape. we have redesign the social zone distributed in two floors... we kept the incomprehensible nozzles and arcs (there were in concrete). we connected the kitchen to the dining room, continuously to the living room. without changing the proportions, everything was target of a new design. the result satisfies me.
intervention still errs by defect (the intervention still is wrong by default). “the old structural forms – write by f. l. wright in 1908 – meant that even today “architecture” are outdated (...) the concrete and terracotta art make a portend more plastic art, in which the coating will be for the structure as meat is to our bones, but able (capable) to express more than ever, truth and beauty.”
the house desperately needed architecture. we need architecture desperately.