HOUSE 1 | ALICE - Atelier de la Conception de l’Espace

HOUSE 1 is an architectural installation based on an experimental format for collaborative design and construction by ALICE (Atelier de la Conception de l’Espace) – an international group of young architects and researchers, scientists, and doctoral candidates from the EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne), led by the Director Dieter Dietz. Built initially as proto-structure (primary construction) during a 5-day workshop in April, HOUSE 1 is a 11m x 11m x 11m balloon-frame timber construct holding the ‘genetic code’ for future developments. The project involved over 200 students, who worked in groups under the close guidance of 12 studio directors and the wood engineer Rémy Meylan. In succession, each team was asked to design and realize a ROOM (a space intended for HABITATION), or a TRANSITIONAL SPACE providing CONNECTIVITY (porch, stairs, doorway). The boundaries that divide studio projects are blurry zones of negotiation over space, culture, and ideas. Accordingly, each project is strongly influenced by the others as it enters a multilayered discourse with its surroundings. The spatial experience of HOUSE 1 is therefore not that of a homogenous architecture; rather, it is an unfolding evolution of a space that invokes questions, contains possibilities, and is open for interpretation. Alexa den Hartog, one of the 12 studio directors responsible for making HOUSE 1 a feasible project, characterizes the proto-structure and its process of inhabitation as a “restricted physical and temporal - ever changing - landscape that only slowly solidified”. To quote Dieter Dietz, HOUSE 1 reveals its final form “not as something that is done from the top down but something we share.” After four months of frenetic work and strong engagement, the project has been recently completed and is now open to visitors on the EPFL campus next to the Rolex Learning Center.

Architect / designer / artist:
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
ALICE Studio (Atelier de la Conception de l’Espace)

Team:
ALICE Studio - 1st year students (2016), Dieter Dietz, Daniel Zamarbide, Raffael Baur, Edouard Cabay, Laurent Chassot, Nicolas Durr, Margherita Del Grosso, Alexa den Hartog Stéphane Grandgirard, Patricia Guaita, Agathe Mignon, Andrea Pellacani, Laura Perez Lupi, Anne-Chantal Rufer, Wynd van der Woude with Thibaud Smith

Lead engineer timber construction:
Rémy Meylan, architect & wood engineer Whood x Mug (www.whoodxmug.ch)

Sponsors:
Marti Construction SA
Getaz Miauton, Debrunner Acifer
Roth échafaudages
E.S. Echafaudages Services SA

Materials:
wood, metal, concrete

Tools:
screwdriver, japanese saw, drill, rope

Quantities:
dimensions: 11 x 11 x 11 meters
weight: 5 tons
planning: 3 months preparations, 1 month construction
15’000 linear meter of wood
20’000 screws
150 concrete tiles