Casa Serrano
Located on the top of Los Dominicos
hill, Casa Serrano appears to be levitating
above the city. Whereas the Casa
is well hidden from the street below, the
breadth of the site is occupied by a long,
low mass.
The architectural response is naturally
the simple abstraction of the forms and
volumes. All reference points that would
give a sense of scale have thus been removed:
the openwork wooden skin masks
the openings, the monolithic volume
of concrete hides the floors of the upper
storeys, the railings on the imposing
roof have been made invisible by being
set back, the fully glass-plated ground
floor, somewhere between transparency
and reflection, blocks out the structure
and reinforces the illusion of levitation.
Here, everything seems to float and the
furniture, designed specially by Christophe
Rousselle, also contributes to this
impression of weightlessness.
The swimming pool, a solid block of
concrete set into the slope, is another
element that reinforces the feeling of
levitation as it is aligned with the slope
and makes the swimmer feel the landscape
disappears when contemplating the
view.
