Prism House
The promoters of the commission are an Architect’s friend couple, no kids, with a very organized life and a special sensibility for elegance and quality spaces. They decided to move to a suburban area to get bigger spaces, to be more in contact with the surrounding nature as well, typical of those types of neighborhoods.
From the beginning, the couple and the architect studio began the housing program journey together, the process started with the proposition of some questions:
How to remain singular without falling back in ostentation?
How to make something unique without appealing to clichéd ornaments?
How to transmit a coherent image to the owners’ thoughts?
How to achieve a respectful implantation to the natural profile of the environment?
The coincidences were complete since the answers reflected the study’s philosophy, manifested in each one of its jobs. We could summarize it in one sentence: The search for tension between functional and volumetric simplicity,setting offagainst the greater expressiveness of the chosen materials. The house was raised with cellular concrete blocks, slab of beams and polystyrene bricks, ceilings suspended made of gypsum rock plate, heavy line aluminum openings and hermetic double glazing. The main gate and doors are tongue and groove boards of kiri.
Another joint decision was the little variation in the choice of both exterior and interior materials. The floors throughout the house are of Turkish travertine marble with a small wooden intervention in the living room. The cladding is made of San Luis slab placed on the side of the cut to achieve a flat surface.
The light as an ally, both natural and artificial plus the analyzed implantation in the field, the use of "filters" like parasols, curtains of vertical bands, variety of built-in devices, and rails with dirigible or hanging spots, was designed to emphasize the effects associated with well-beingsense.
A synthetic and descriptive response of “Prism” house could be that its spatial-volumetric conception is essentially simple; in its proportions, the horizontality prevails, interacting all around its perimeter with the exterior and, the careful choice of its materials seeks to drive to the stimulating experience of inhabit the spaces.
From the entrance, in route towards the house, the landscape treatment presents the contrast between a dry stone-surfaced area, which acts a separation in the courtesy parking, and a very green zone next to the pool-fountain’s water mirror that guides to the "atrium" of the house’s access.
Functionality is solved in three transversal modules, separated by patios, courtyard surfaces that are introduced in the most intimate areas ... bringing the possibility of experiences them with the protection’s feeling granted by the enclosure.
The transversality of these areas is opposed to the circulation axis which connects them in concordance with the use, beginning with a more public use and ending with the most private purposes. The micro-linear texture provided by the stone as a coating, the naturality of the concrete and the warmth of the wood, provide substance to the effort to achieve an eloquent material response to the questions of the beginning of the process.
