ANALYSIS OF BORDEAUX HOUSEBurak ARIFOGLU

The MAISON BORDEAUX house REM KOOLHAAS

Bordeaux, France

1994 Commissioned

1998 Completed

5 km from Bordeaux center.Cape-like hill 100m,above sea level.180 ° view of the city and the river.400m access road,natural environment.

500 m² (5 bedrooms,3bathrooms)(main house),100 m²(2bedrooms,2bathrooms)(guard/guesthouse)

The Maison BORDEAUX İS 500 m²

Structural system include concrete and steel

Major materials is concrete,steel,aluminium,glass

Architecs:OMA: Rem Koolhaas with Maarten van Severen,team members:Julien Monfort,Jeanne Gang,Bill Price,Jeroen Thom-as,with Yo Yamagata,Chris Don-dorp,Erik Schotte,Vincent Cos-tos

Engineers:Ove Arup&Part-ners:Cecil Balmond,Robert Pugh

Fitted furnishing and mobile platform:Maarten van Sever-en,Raf de Preter

Condination and technical as-sistance:Michel Regaud,Bordeaux

Facade consultant: Robert-Jan Santen

Hydraulics consultant:Gerard Couillandeau

Interior consultant: Petra Blaise

The direct relation between the building and the topography. When the land reaches it’s highest point, the building graves the land and finds itself a space for it’s flat nature, building it’s borders against the earth beneath it. Based on this act of graving, the building finds itself a world for two more floors.

Pictures from OMA’s website

Moving up from ground floor to second, the building takes us from this cave-like place to a gallery space, from a quality coming from graving to a quali-ty that comes from leaving all sides open to the sun, the forest and the city of Bor-deaux. This second floor is constructed of glass on top of the land, be-coming one with the land. Be-cause of the material used and building’s relation with the land, the land and the building exist together, be-coming one as a living space, as if the in-side and out-side is not so different.

While second floor becomes one with the land, it almost gets out of the whole structure, impowering the infamous issue of ‘floating’. Another cause of this issue is the usage of materials. Koolhas places a box of concrete on top of the glass construction, almost creating an illusion for human eye. We get the sense that this console is floating, then we suddenly realize the beam and the min-imal structure there is. This beam of course is there for construction causes, providing a balance for the console to place itself.

Observing the relation of the building and the land it is on, we know the build-ing sits on a cape-like hill overlooking the city of Bordeaux and the river of Ga-ronne. Because of the height, the building gets the sunrays directly. The facade is facing the north with an angle of 30 (or so) degrees, meaning all three floors cap-tures lots of sunlight. Thinking on the subject of light, we could easily say that sec-ond floor gets lots of it while the third floor may be a bit confusing. Because the

Bordeaux house perspectives

The architect designed the house for a wheelchaired person and his family, meaning a wheelchair can circulate the house freely. Also referred as ‘the heart of the house’, there is a hydrolic platform which is vital for the vertical circulation with two other stairs.

From Jeremy HORTONO’s analyse project

Through this platform, the father of the family can wan-der through the house almost easier than any other person. It shifts all the floors as we know them, changing the house con-stantly, while being an office space and a library for the per-son using it.

Vertical circulation is a major aspect of the design, meaning these people would like the live fast and freely, for their jobs and/or for their routines.

‘A HOUSE IS A MACHINE FOR A LIVING’

‘A HOUSE IS A MACHINE FOR A LIVING’