Borneo Dock Complex
The project is a low solid with emergences and holes. The roof, that is in terms of surface the most important facade of the building, shows a landscape between domestic and abstract. From it, the arising volumes introduce a small and rural scale to the whole. Lightness and weight, wood and brick (with its specific construction and compositional systems) form a complementary world, like a mandala, trying to respond both to the aquatic and gaseous character of the site as weel as to the need of stability, anchoring and protection a house demands.
“The complex should be understood not from the sequence of its elements, but from their interrelationship. In such a beautiful and unique place, surrounded by water on three sides, the project strives to create an impression of openness, distance and lightness. The complex should not appear hard, compact and massive, in the manner of a permanent protective dyke, but seeks, rather to open itself up and- relatively speaking- to melt away." Josep Lluís Mateo
http://www.mateo-arquitectura.com/projects/housing-units-amsterdam-the-netherlands/