The secrets of this earth are not for all men to see, but only for those who seek them
Single Family Homes
Casa Ponce – Buenos Aires, Argentina
Oct 10th
Located on the slope of the historic section of San Isidro Labrador to the north of Buenos Aires, this renowned work by Mathias Klotz challenges the tolerance of the home in relation to the skills of modern architecture. Although a small supporting section is semi-underground, three-quarters of Casa Ponce is cantilevered and floats above the ground.
The house is not only a disturbing and spectacular architectural structure but also an overt metaphor for the fetish of contemporary architecture. Klotz resolves the notoriously unchallenging single-family housing program with a provocative twist: he provides, on the narrow lot, open views of the Rio de la Plata, located behind the property. The layout of the parallel bars along the length of the lot struggles with the problematic decision not to divide the lot in two. More >
Grand Union Canal Terrace – London
Sep 13th
Nicholas Grimshaw was one of the leading exponents of the High Tech school of architecture that emerged in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s. This row of ten houses in north London was built as part of a mixed-use development with a large supermarket at its centre. On the rear elevations to the south, the houses confront the store parking lot with blank, corrugated metal walls to block out the noise and pollution.
On the front elevations to the north, however, they cantilever out and open up with large windows, doors, and balconies to make the most of their position overlooking the Grand Union Canal. Outside, the houses are clad in aluminum panels punched with windows like those in the Airstream trailer. More >
Kidosaki House – Tokyo
Sep 13th
ericberkson.com
Japanese architect Tadao Ando’s Kidosaki House, which was constructed in a Tokyo suburb between 1982 and 1986, takes careful account of ancient Japanese living conventions and accommodates them within a minimalist, modern-looking structure.
It is the exquisitely planned combination of bold, geometrical lines, simple construction materials and their interweaving with natural elements that makes this house a triumph of understated elegance. More >
London Street-Porter House
Sep 11th
In the 1980s, Janet Street-Porter, a TV producer famous for her radical shows, commissioned this house from her student days. Gough went on to become a founding partner of CZWG, a practice that brought Pop Art sensibilities to architecture. Both the client and the architect of this house were interested in challenging conventional ideas of good taste, and in making decoration an integral part of the design.
The site of the house occupies an entire street corner in the historic Clerkenwell distinct of London, between the financial centre of the city in the east and the fashionable West End. The choice of what was a run-down decoration seemed rather eccentric at the time, but the area has since become one of the most fashionable parts of the city. More >
Donnybrook Quarter – London
Sep 9th
This public housing project in London’s East End is more an exercise in city making than in building making. Created for developer Circle 33, the 48-unit project was designed to ‘unlock the density of the site’, Peter Barber explains.
Its multi-storey terraced townhouses – which each have their own entries and their own courtyards, either on ground level or on ‘notched terraces’ above other units’ rooftops – are arranged along a wide, paved pedestrian thoroughfare that becomes very active during peak hours. More >
