Rust-ic House
“The best preventive remedy to aging is architecture”.
How to design and build a project that will take few decades to complete “on time” for its owner retirement plan? In this project, aging and weathering serve as a critical design tool for thinking about how architecture might intercept the changing state of weathering on site.
On a sloping rural site with views over the land, the form and orientation of an existing cottage generates two further, similar buildings, which offer a more complete in-habitation of the ground. The first, a south-facing bedroom emerges from the hill; the second, a bathroom with double height shower of traditional Moroccan construction is largely contained within it.
The three buildings are connected by a subterranean roof-lit corridor whose walls retain the earth. These are sheds, entirely made out of in situ concrete (walls and roofs) and finished with a natural rust iron pigments usually used for gardening, making reference in color and form to vernacular construction.
