CASA THOR
After the pandemic lockdown, Casa Thor is a project that aims to create an opportunity to live with more space and a garden, combining family life and work life. The project begins with the partial recovery of an existing 70-square-meter house, removing all the interior partitions from its structure and converting it into a common space—integrating the kitchen, dining room, and living room: building the negative, transforming the existing built mass into a volume of air for the new house.
Above it, we mounted, from wall to wall, a steel structure shed that contains the maximum buildable volume according to current regulations, with a ground occupancy of 130 square meters built and a maximum interior height of 6 meters. Between the existing house and the shed, we roofed two interior volumes of lower height—one for parents, the other for children—which contain bedrooms, bathrooms, and storage rooms, requiring more privacy. The rest is a common space that feels larger than its 70-square-meter area thanks to the double interior height.
On the lower level, the common space opens to the backyard. This has been planted—with low-water-consumption plant species, as has the front yard. Towards the street, a completely sealed facade generates security while allowing maximum transparency and exposure of a front yard offered for anyone’s view from the street. A large rectangular oculus of 2.5x2.5 meters watches the street and, in turn, fills the common interior space with indirect light. The contrast between the opening and the blind wall is accentuated by the dark finish of charred wood planks (Yakisugi Shikkoku).
