SHAKER HEIGHTS COMPETITION

This project’s main idea was driven by the intent of both echoing the traditional and characteristic elements of the built environment and introducing low impact technical solutions. In doing so we decided to maintain and reinterpret in a modern aesthetic elements such as the veranda, the backyard, the garage and the pitched roof. We then arranged a new internal spaces’ configuration based on a set of open corridors which connect both the inside with the outside and the residential body with the newly introduced office/laboratory linked with the garage. Such a spatial and typological organisation is then integrated with elements and solutions typical of the Passive houses, such as greenhouse-like areas, solar wall technology, thicker walls to enhance the insulation and prevent heat loss, double glazed windows filled with argon gas and an inner partition and continuity of the shapes. The use of such a rich set of starting elements resulted in a project with a variety of spaces such as a frontal veranda facing the street, a lateral portico connecting the house with the neighbouring one and with its own backyard, the creation of a detached laboratory where to work so that people are given the possibility to even work in their own house and a open corridor comprehensive of the day-time activities which can be adapted and transformed according with the user’s needs. This project’s aim is to enable people to obtain at a low cost a reversible and flexible modern space without distancing the feel of the house from the traditional solutions typical of the neighbourhood.

ACHIEVEMENT: short list