Living in the Desert
In Sertum
The dominant role of nature in shaping the desert landscape shows us how the natural things of this place impose strongly themeselves.
The word “desert” derives from the Latin word desertum, comoposed of the particle de that assigns a negative sense and of the verb serere, that means to connect, to tie, stating an entity that doesn’t have a connection point, empty, uninhabited. We believe that man still has a role to play here. We wanted to use "In sertum" like a word game to express the will to add rather than to subtract, to include itself instead of to contrast, using elements like wind and sand such as active entities in the definition of the project. It adapts itself to the necessary transformation, generating a permanent dialogue with the elements around it, feeling the desert not like a limit. The triangular shape’s iconicity, that recall strength and stability’s characteristic in relation to the desert’s power, performs a landmark’s function and, at the same time denies itself letting disclose an unexpected feature. It’s an enclosure that embrace the desert, allowing the desert to permeate itself and to be modified by it, the depth of which become space of life.
The structure, completely surrounded by the textile, becomes the symbolic transposition in large-scale of the living aggregations created by the nomadic families that live traditionally not isolated but close to other tents. The textile’s covering is carried away and is lightened up by the wind, takes on new configurations , inflating and deflating according to the force with which it touches its surface, making the wall immaterial, and the enclosure itself, preserving its materic and spatial force, becomes an ossimoro.
The textile’s covering is carried away and is lightened up by the wind, takes on new configurations , inflating and deflating according to the force with which it touches its surface, making the wall immaterial, and the enclosure itself, preserving its materic and spatial force, becomes an ossimoro. Everything in a landscape, as well as in everything in life, is based on change, on relativity, and on the passing of time.
If day-time the textile gives the structure a compact aspect, shading the surrounding spaces contributing to regolate the indoor temperature, in the night-time, artificial light, filtering through the weaves, lights up the facade, transforming the structure into a reference point.
The incision in the central part of the triangular volume divides the structure in two parts corresponding to two residential blocks, connected by a series of crossing bridges, running side by side along the whole perimeter of the structure. This action defines an interstitial outdoor space in which is inserted an oasis that become symbolically the shelter of the spirit, the place to hear themselves. It is a monument to the sky and to the sun, evocation of the passing of the seasons and time.
A vantage point of infinity.
