Centrifugal-centripetal House

The initial goal is to achieve a much brighter interior space and more spacious rooms. To achieve this, some interior divisions and the central load-bearing wall on the ground floor are demolished. The interior of the house is ‘reoccupied’ on the basis of a positive-negative type  of distinction between the served and servant spaces. On the ground floor, where a big , open common space is achieved (living-dining room-kitchen), the servant space is organized in a centrifugal layout: the kitchen, a lavatory, the staircase and various storage elements are placed against the facade forming a ‘crown’, thus obtaining a central unitary served space of maximum dimensions. In contrast, on the first floor, the distribution of the servant space, formed by the two bathrooms and the cupboards, is organized through a centripetal strategy in which four arms colonise the centre of the floor forming a swastika that generates the divisions between rooms. 

In order to increase the luminosity of the ground floor, the south-facing opening looking at the garden is greatly increased. With the same intention, the window of the main room on the first floor is made bigger, also colonizing a piece of the terrace. The removal of the ceiling on the first floor helps to increase the inhabited volume gained under the roof, generating a suggestive set of sloping planes that now functions as the ceiling of the rooms. 

The material selection aims to reinforce this fundamental distinction between servant and served spaces that structures the whole project. In the centrifugal space on the ground floor, the furniture forming the servant ‘crown’ is painted white. In contrast, in the centripetal first floor the servant volumes are crafted in wood.