DECONSTRUCTIVISM AND CRITICAL REGIONALISM

Submitted By-Abhiniti Garg

Anurag KamalManisha Jain

Navdha Kabra

DECONSTRUCTIVISM• It is a development in POST-MODERNISM that started in late 1980s.• It views architecture in bits and pieces.• It has no visual logic.• Buildings may appear to be made of abstract forms.• The idea was to develop buildings which show how differently from

traditional architectural conventions buildings can be built without loosing their utility and still complying with the fundamental laws of physics.

• The ideas were borrowed from the French philosopher, Jacques Derrida.• Architects involved –

– Zaha Hadid– Bernhard Tschumi– Rem Koolhaas

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF DECONSTRUCTIVISM

• Explodes architectural form into loose collections of related fragments.• Destroys the dominance of the right angle and the cube by using the diagonal

line.• Uses ideas and images from Russian Revolutionary architecture and design.• Provokes shock, uncertainty, unease, disquiet, disruption, distortion by

challenging familiar ideas about space, order and regularity in the environment. • Rejects the idea of the `perfect form for a particular activity and rejects the

familiar relationship between certain forms and certain activities.• Two strains of modern art, minimalism and cubism, have had an influence on

deconstructivism.• Analytical cubism also had effect on deconstructivism, as forms and content are

dissected and viewed from different perspectives simultaneously.• It also often shares with minimalism notions of conceptual art.

Zaha Hadid• At the age of eleven in her native Iraq,

Zaha Hadid (b.1950) decided to be an architect.

• “We can’t carry on as cake decorators and do these nostalgic buildings that have an intense degree of cuteness; we have to take on the task of investigating modernity,” Hadid told an interviewer.

• Her style is Deconstructivism (breaking architecture, displacement and distortion, leaving the vertical and the horizontal, using rotations on small, sharp angles, breaks up structures apparent chaos)

• Using light volumes, sharp, angular forms, the play of light and the integration of the buildings with the landscape.

CONCEPT• GRAVITY-DEFYING• FRAGMENTARY• REVOLUTIONARY• A MAIN THEME OF HADIDS DESIGNS EXHIBITS

THAT A BUILDING CAN FLOAT AND DEFY GRAVITY.

Museum of Art, XXI (MAXXI), Rome,Italy

• MAXXI, ROME MAXXI stands for ‘Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo’ (National Museum of 21st Century Art). The museum will become the joint home of the MAXXI Arts and MAXXI Architecture and Italy’s first national museum solely dedicated to contemporary arts.

• MAXXI was also the winner of the RIBA Stirling Prize for the greatest contribution to British architecture in 2010

• The MAXXI’s 27,000 sq m contain – in addition to the two museums – an auditorium, a library and media library, a bookshop, a cafeteria, temporary exhibition spaces, various open spaces for live events, commercial activities, workshops and spaces of study and recreation.

• The building is a composition of bending oblong tubes, overlapping, intersecting and piling over each other, resembling a piece of massive transport infrastructure.

• It acts as a tie between the geometrical elements already present. It is built on the site of old army barracks between the river tiber and via guido reni, the centre is made up of spaces that flow freely and unexpectedly between interior and exterior, where walls twist to become floors or ceilings.

• The building absorbs the landscape structures, dynamizes them and gives them back to the urban environment.

• The two museums – MAXXI Art and MAXXI Architecture – rotate around a large, double storey atrium, the point of connection with the permanent collection galleries and temporary exhibition spaces, the auditorium, reception area, cafeteria and bookshop. Outside, a pedestrian path follows the shape of the building, slipping under its cantilevered volumes and restoring an urban connection interrupted for almost a century by the former military structure.

• In opposition to the decisive architectural sign that dominates the exterior spaces and the atrium, a more sober spatial quality characterises the exhibition halls that host the collections of the two museums. A combination of glass (roof), steel (stairs and columns) and concrete (walls) defines the neutral appearance of the display spaces, while moveable panels ensure the flexibility of their use.

• The fluid and sinuous forms and the variation and interweaving of different levels– assisted by the modulated use of natural light – combine to create a highly complex spatial and functional experience that offers continuously different and unexpected views, from the interior towards the open spaces.

The architecture of MAXXI Two principle architectural elements

characterize the project: • The concrete walls that define the

exhibition galleries and determine the interweaving of volumes; and the transparent roof that modulates natural light.

• The roofing system complies with the highest standards required for museums and is composed of integrated frames and louvers with devices for filtering sunlight, artificial light and environmental control.

• Galleries, Walkway and Materials Located around a large full height space which gives

access to the galleries dedicated to permanent collections and temporary exhibitions, the auditorium, reception services, cafeteria and bookshop. Outside, a pedestrian walkway follows the outline of the building, restoring an urban link that has been blocked for almost a century by the former military barracks in Rome. Materials such as glass (roof), steel (stairs) and cement (walls) give the exhibition spaces a neutral appearance, whilst mobile panels enable curatorial flexibility and variety.

The pedestrian path that crosses the campus follows the soft lines of the museum, slipping under its cantilevered volumes. The interior of the building presents visitors with a glimpse of numerous views and openings that cross the structure: on the one hand protecting its contents between its solid walls, on the other inviting visitors to enter through its large glazed surfaces on the ground floor.

• Sinuous shape The fluid and sinuous shapes, the

variety and interweaving of spaces and the modulated use of natural light lead to a spatial and functional framework of great complexity, offering constantly changing and unexpected views from within the building and outdoor spaces.

• MAXXI casts aside the idea of the “closed” building in favour of a broader dimension that extends the interior spaces into the exterior spaces around the building, open to the entire neighbourhood.

El Phaeno• LOCATION: Wolfsburg, Germany. This being the biggest factory in Europe,

employing more than 50,000 people, is home to some 120,000 inhabitants. And receives an average of a million and a half visitors a year. Located in the city center, in an area between the commercial and office. A pass around high speed trains, to the Mittelland canal bank.

• Science Museum: In seeking to be more than the "city volkswagen" she was

commissioned to launch the idea of creating a museum dedicated to engage children and young people to the world of physics, biology and chemistry, in a didactic way. This offers a different option for visitors, with its traditional theme park Autostadt and the Volkswagen museum. Receiving a 180mil visitors annually.

• Urban Analysis The building appears in the landscape as a connecting element

between the two parts of the city, establishing a direct relationship with the city and move through it. Multiple paths pedestrian and vehicle motion is in the terrain place either inwards or through building composing a displacement interconnection routes.

INDEX1. EXPOSITION2. EMPTY3. PUB4. LABORATORY5. STAIRS6. RAMP AND BRIDGE

INDEX OF LOW LEVEL1. SQUARE2. RAMP3. ENTRY4. PUB5. DEPARTURE6. AUDIENCE7. LOCAL8. EVENT

• Landscape: It appears as a mysterious object that arouses curiosity and

discovery. The terrain passes underneath the volume as an artificial landscape with rolling hills and valleys that stretch around the square. The Center captures the surrounding landscape dynamics in elongated form off the ground, in aventajamientos crashes and walls that give the illusion that the building is moving. The public path leads bridge-like woodworm-hole inside the building, promoting interaction between the inside and outside which enables, as in floor, a fusion of both.

• Spaces: The building allows people to walk and climb down one part of

the pavement to get inside. In other places, the ground floor takes visitors to a public square. Downstairs open broad prospects, exposing the context of the city, between the concrete cones.

• The building does not tread the earth completely. Much stands on a square with a series of large inverted conical shapes with rounded corners that act as legs and give an effect of weightlessness.

• Among them develop various functions as a library, conference rooms and an auditorium for 250 people.

• Techniques and materials: Concrete: The roof structure is steel. Facade: Has only large portions of concrete. Glazed areas: They used large glass shades. Furthermore you can see

skylights, respecting the diamond pattern was made in the concrete. Were used in construction, 27 cubic meters of concrete and more than 3,500 steel beams.

• The "cones” So called piles, appointed by the architect as cones, which are widening

as rise. There are 10 of them and each one is identified by its curvature and tilt. These piles are inhabited with windows, and sliding glass doors.

Temporary tensile structures, Lilas Installations, London, 2003

• The Serpentine Summer Party Installation is designed as an open air space raising 5.5m that consists of three identical tensile fabric structures or parasols arrayed around a central point. Each parasol develops sculpturally from a small articulated base to a large cantilevered diamond shape.

• Taking inspiration from complex natural geometries such as flower petals and leaves, the three parasols overlap to create the pavilion’s main conceptual feature: complex symmetry, interweaving all-the-while without touching, allowing air, light and sound to travel through narrow gaps in a state that is both open and likewise tending toward closure.

• Raised on a low platform located within an open field flanked by a row of trees just South of the Serpentine Gallery, the Serpentine Summer Party Pavilion is free standing and accessible from all sides.

• Accommodating movement throughout the site, the Pavilion is enigmatic. In the day it provides shading, while at night the pavilion undergoes an energetic transformation into a source of illumination. From continuous lighting around each base, light is thrown up the fabric surfaces along very thin seams that radiate about the parasols that act like corseting or the veining of flowers revealing the geometric intricacy of the pavilion and highlighting the overall architectural form in calligraphic arcs.

• SIZE/AREA:Height 5.5 mWidth 22.5 mLength 22.5 mTotal Floor Area 310 m2

Centre for Contemporary Art, CincinnatiCincinnati's Contemporary Arts Center is the first built project in the United StatesIn response to the metropolitan setting of the building, Hadid developed the concept of the "urban carpet", to draw in pedestrian traffic inherent to a downtown area. The "urban carpet" is articulated by a seamless run of concrete that begins outside the building, continues into the mezzanine level and eventually curves upward at the far end of the building behind the stairs.

ZHA Nordpark Cable Railway,Innsbruck, Austria• In the project there are four stations. The

scenic railway, which serves ski stations in the mountains above the city.

• The concepts of “Shell & Shadow” generate each station’s spatial quality.

• A lightweight organic roof structure floats on top of a concrete plinth. The fluid shapes and soft contours give the appearance of glacier movements.

• New production methods like CNC milling and thermoforming allow computer generated designs to be made into buildings structure.

• Parts of the building look like cars, aeroplane wings, yachts. Large cantilevers and small touch down areas give a floating appearance to the shells.

BERNHARD TSCHUMI• Decon follies (like Tschumi’s

pavilions at La Villettein Paris) seek to promote dislocation, not provide cosyshelter. Decon is mostly paper architecture, in which many of designs published in magazines are clearly unbuildable: girders projecting at weird angles into air, beams that pierce space like pins in a voodoo doll, and columns without function seem to violate laws of gravity.

The designs create non-sensual sculptures for an irrational world. “Making things fit doesn’t make sense anymore,” the Swiss-born Tschumi said.

Principles• Form follows fiction.• Theory of timelessness.• Red is not a colour.• Point, Line and Surface theory.

• Technologies of Defamiliarization• The Mediated “Metropolitan” shock• De-structuring• Superimposition• Crossprogramming• Events : The Turning point

Six Concepts

Parc de la Villette, Folies, 1982-97• Over 1 kilometer long in one direction C and 700 meters wide in the other La Villette appears as a multiple programmatic field, containing in addition to the park, the large Museum of Science and Industry, a City of Music, a Grande Hall for exhibitions and a rock concert hall. • The basis of the design is the superimposition of three independent systems, namely: Points Lines Surfaces Superimposition: lines, points, surfaces.

Points• The folies are placed according to a point-grid

coordinate system at 120 meter intervals throughout the park. The form of each is a basic 10 x 10 x 10 meter cube or three-story construction of neutral space that can be transformed and elaborated according to specific programmatic needs. Taken as a whole, the folies provide a common denominator for all of the events generated by the park program.

• The repetition of folies is aimed at developing clear symbol for the park, a recognizable identity.

• Their grid provides a comprehensive image or shape for the otherwise ill-defined terrain.

• Similarly, the regularity of routes and positions makes orientation simple for those unfamiliar with the area. An advantage of the point-grid system is that it provides for the minimum adequate equipment of the urban park relative to the number of its visitors.

Lines• The folie grid is related to a larger

coordinate structure, an orthogonal system of high-density pedestrian movement that marks the site with a cross.

• The North-South passage or Coordinate links the two Paris gates and subway stations of Porte de la Villette and Porte de Pantin, the East- West Coordinate joins Paris to its western suburbs.

• A5 meter wide, open, waved covered structure runs the length of both Coordinates.

Surfaces• The park surfaces receive all

activities requiring large expanses of horizontal space for play, sports and exercise, mass-entertainment, markets and so forth.

• During summer nights, for example, the central green becomes an open air film theater for 3,000 viewers. The so called left over surfaces where all aspects of the program have been fulfilled, are composed of compacted earth and gravel.

New Acropolis Museum, Athens• A movement concept The visitors route forms a clear three-

dimensional loop, affording an architectural promenade with a rich spatial experience extending from the archaeological excavations to the Parthenon Marbles and back through the Roman period.

• Movement in and through time is a crucial dimension of architecture, and of this museum in particular.

• With over 10,000 visitors daily, the sequence of movements through the museum artifacts is conceived to be of utmost clarity.

• ORGANISATION The Museum is conceived as a base, a

middle zone and a top, taking its form from the archaeological excavation below and from the orientation of the top floor toward the Parthenon.

• Tectonic & programmatic concept The base of the museum design contains

an entrance lobby overlooking the Makriyianni excavations as well as temporary exhibition spaces, lobby, retail, and all support facilities. The base hovers over the excavation on more than 100 slender concrete pillars.

Mid – level Plan

• The middle (which is trapezoidal in plan) is a double-height space that soars to 10 meters (33 feet), accommodating the galleries from the Archaic to the late Roman period.

• A Mezzanine features a bar and restaurant (with a public terrace looking out toward the Acropolis) and multimedia space.

Top level Plan• The top is the rectangular, glass-

enclosed, skylight Parthenon Gallery, over 7 meters high and with a floor space of over 2,050 square meters (22,100 square ft).

• It is shifted 23 degrees from the rest of the building to orient it directly toward the Acropolis.

• The building’s concrete core, which penetrates upward through all levels, becomes the surface on which the marble sculptures of the Parthenon Frieze are mounted. The core allows natural light to pass down to the Caryatids.

REM KOOLHAAS: THE CULTURE OF CONGESTION

• The Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas (b.1944) believes architecture should be a dangerous, risk-taking enterprise. His vision of dynamic between an architect and the megalopolis informs his work.

• Koolhaas’s hallmark is the inventive use of inexpensive industrial materials like plywood and plastic.

• He seeks to preserve the immediacy of improvised sketching in his inventive designs.

• An urbanist and thinker as well as builder, Koolhaas has a hybrid cast of mind that puts subversive kinks into Modernist forms.

Seattle Central Library, Seattle, USA, 2004•The Seattle Central Library redefines the library as an institution no longer exclusively dedicated to the book, but as an information store where all potent forms of media.• Central library for Seattle’s 28-branch library system, including 33,700 sq m of hq, reading room, book spiral, mixing chamber, meeting platform, living room, staff floor, children’s collection, and auditorium, and 4,600 sq m of parking.• Floors - 11+1 basement level• From the outside , you can see a large glass building , straight lines that intersect. It is articulated by large blocks at different levels corresponding to the library premises . • The " spiral " , was a new way of delivering books to customers within a library system . Instead of books on different shelves and floors, the spiral inclined allowed a continuous row of books that make them " easy to navigate " .

Concept• The concept involves the reinvention of the library as an access point to information

presented in a variety of media "The new library does not reinvent or modernize traditional , they are just packaged in a new way ," explain in the OMA study.

• Koolhaas applied its interpretation of the feature set and architecture for the project that the building would be flexible for future expansions.

• Flexibility in contemporary libraries is conceived as the creation of generic floors on which almost any activity can be developed.

• This form of flexibility , the library strangles the very attractions that differentiate it from other information resources .

• Instead of its current ambiguous flexibility , the library could cultivate a more refined approach in organizing spatial compartments, each dedicated to and equipped for specific services.

Paces• Inside the building, a spiral structure provides

a continuous surface with coated side shelves that offer different themed collections. These ramps are supported on slender columns constructed economically .

• The interior is divided into 5 distinguishable blocks from the outside :

1. the parking area 2. public reading area 3. café deployed in the large atrium 4. main library space ,and reading rooms and 5. administration, all them culminates in a

terrace on the roof.• The third floor of the library is called "living

room ".

• The Book Spiral implies a reclamation of the much-compromised Dewey Decimal System. By arranging the collection in a continuous ribbon— running from 000 to 999—the subjects form a coexistence that approaches the organic; each evolves relative to the others, occupying more or less space on the ribbon, but never forcing a rupture.

• The main feature of the interior is its large public spaces and leisure reading , illuminated with natural light coming through the glass walls .

• The building is covered by a striking glass and steel structure .

INNOVATIONS IN ENERGY EFFICIENCY

• The library is exceeds Seattle’s energy code by 10 percent.

• The expected energy savings would power at least 125 homes.

• Better shading effect than most tinted glass buildings, without the undesirable darkening.

• Diagonal grid system : protection against earthquake or wind damage

A wealthy married couple with three children lived in a very old and beautiful house in Bordeaux in France. For many years this family was thinking about building a new home, planning how it could be and wondering who the architect would be. Suddenly, the husband had a car accident and almost lost his life. Now he needs a wheelchair. The old beautiful house and the medieval city of Bordeaux had now become a prison for him. The family started to think about their new

house again but this time in a very different way.The married couple bought a hill with a panoramic view over the city and approached the Dutch

architect Rem Koolhaas in 1994. The husband explained to him: "Contrary to what you might expect, I do not want a simple house. I want a complicated house because it will determine my

world."

'MAISON À BORDEAUX'

Circulation in the new house.Instead of designing a house on one floor which would ease the movements of the wheelchair, the architect surprised them with an idea of a house on three levels, one on top of each other. The ground floor, half-carved into the hill, accommodates the kitchen and television room, and leads to a courtyard. The bedrooms of the family are on the top floor, built as a dark concrete box. In the middle of these two levels is the living room made of glass where one contemplates the valley of the river Garonne and Bordeaux's clear outline. The wheelchair has access to these levels by an elevator platform that is the size of a room, and is actually a well-equipped office. Because of its vertical movements, the platform becomes part of the kitchen when it is on the ground floor; links with the aluminium floor on the middle level and creates a relaxed working space in the master bedroom on the top floor. In the same way that the wheelchair can be interpreted as an extension of the body, the elevator platform, created by the architect, is an indispensable part of the handicapped client. This offers him more possibilities of mobility than to any other member of the family-only he has access to spaces like the wine cellar or the bookshelves made of polycarbonate which span from the ground floor to the top of the house, and thus respond to the movement of the platform.

Experiencing the house.Koolhaas designed a complex house in itself and surpassed the conventional, in every detail. For example, the top floor rests on three legs. One of these legs, a cylinder that includes the circular staircase of the house, is located off-centre. Although this displacement brings an instability to the house, it gains equilibrium by placing a steel beam over the house which pulls a cable in tension. The first question that the visitor asks is: what happens if the cord is cut? Koolhaas has created a structure which, equal to the life of the client, depends on a cable.

Experiencing the house.This arrangement provides the middle level with an uninterrupted view over the surrounding landscape, and an effect that is intensified with the highly polished finish of the stainless steel cylinder which incorporates the stairs, and makes it disappear into the landscape. The middle level is a balcony where the top floor floats above. It is a glazed space which allows the wheelchair to confuse the nature outside with the interior of the house. In contrast, the same landscape receives another treatment from the top floor. The view appears restricted and predetermined, framed by circular windows placed according to whether one stands, sits or lays down

Experiencing the house.Inside the house the family experiences Koolhaas's interpretations of life's instability and dualities. In regards to the husband, he has experienced this instability and is now part of his own self. In the same way that the umbilical cord belongs both to the mother and the baby, and gives it nutrition; the elevator platform connects the husband to the house and offers him a liberation.

Villa dall Ava, St. Cloud, Paris, By Koolhaas, 1991Irregular forms and slanted lines show Koolhaas’s Deconstructivist tendencies.

The client wanted a glass house with a rooftop pool and two separate "apartments", one for parents, one for the daughter. They also wanted a panoramic view from the pool, the surrounding countryside and the city of Paris.The site is like a big room with a border made of green spaces, garden walls and slopes. It consists of three parts: a sloping garden, the main volume of the villa and garage at street level with access to a cavity. The house is conceived as a glass pavilion containing living and dining areas, with two perpendicular apartments moving in opposite directions to take the view that seem to float. They pool, which is supported by the concrete structure covered by glass pavilion added.The house is conceived as a glass pavilion containing living and dining areas, with two perpendicular apartments moving in opposite directions to take the view that seem to float. The architectural choice was determined by the significant influence of the built environment and landscape. Thus, in order to preserve the visual relationships and control the complex correspondences between the architectural present, it was decided to divide the land into three strips, oriented east to west. The first partition, defined as a garden, is part of the continuity of the range of the upper plot and lasts until the pedestrian entrance. The desire to preserve a strip not built at the bottom of the solar set the idea vacuum cross, and evaluate new neighbourhood relations. The second is the longitudinal strip the building, and the third , asphalt, allows access to the garage. The main volume of the building is placed in the axis of the plot, grouping the bedrooms on the upper floor in two volumes perpendicular to the main body. The decks offer a panoramic view of Paris.

Main Floor The idea was to create on main floor with a social area which were remarkable feature given the fluidity of space that allowed simulating thus, a "continuation of the park inside the house". For this reason we note the almost total absence of furniture, in fact, the small amount of furniture is oriented longitudinally (along the lines of the side walls) so as not to set limits marked. In turn we can highlight the presence of large windows around its perimeter which makes the "internal - external environment" relationship.•Dining room The sector is the lounge and dining room is able to perform a multitude of activities given its fluidity and lack of boundaries. In a middle section is the kitchen located in a place of "step" whose only limits are given for wood furniture arranged longitudinally and a semi-transparent "skin" that accompanies the curved line of the counter.•ParkAs previously noted, in the house there is an area for public use consisting of the ground floor and private sector use consisting of the bedrooms. In turn we can add the accession of the park to public use area because of its "introduction" in the internal environment through the large windows (living room and garden are one, due to the presence of sliding windows). In general, from our point of view, we believe that the house has been made almost exclusively for internal use by family members. In fact we found a very pleasant public sector, due to the lack of places for the meeting or service spaces, since the only place providing the space itself is the kitchen, which is at the dining room service

Second floorThe apartments cantilevered beyond the central volume hovering over the garden. Referring to the intimate area, we can say that we also note a well marked between the two bedrooms, so division, the bedrooms act as individual departments, so as each of them has its own area of services and a staircase that allows access independently from the main plant. On this floor there is the presence of two bathrooms, one serving each room, located in rectangular volumes retracted behind the exterior walls.•BedroomsThe first bedroom on the street is for the daughter. The second to parent and is located on the living room. Moves to the other side of the line of the wall, on a ledge amazing. Every detail of this construction is contrary to common sense and baffles. The severity of construction, the heaviest part is located on the top floor , defying the laws of physics.Regarding the bedroom consider not meet other specific function given its distinct separation of the social area.

StructureThe house is well regulated by the thick concrete wall that is located longitudinally on the lot, one end of which is located one of the boxes, leaning against, the other stands astride where it disappears. The wall acts as a powerful lever, the rest is just movement, including garden indeterminate spaces that seem to be part of the living room. With this arrangement the system produces all kinds of vertical compressions struggling against the powerful interior columns, partly masked by the fitted line separating the ramp from adjoining rooms. These compressions are resolved by the horizontal expansion of the glass walls. Spaces spilling outward, or seize him, to such an extent that the boundaries between inside and outside disappear, like the uncertain balance between up and down.The game covers offers another illusion that merges with the sky, there is no parapet or on the roof garden, or the elongated pool, it is not to a space to vertigo sufferers. As throughout the villa classical concepts were eliminated, the manifesto of a new era shows exultant face of changing times.Similarities with the Villa SavoyeThe Villa Dall'Ava is not just a residence program that explores and proposes structural and contemporary reinterpretations, is itself a collection of the Villa Savoye of Le Corbusier, which are re-evaluated the five points of the Swiss franc architect: •Free groundThe freedom with which the program is resolved, is the result of inventive structural Villa Dall'Ava system where few pillars and beams solve large loads, a clear tribute to Villa Savoye .•Free facadeAs a result of the previous option, there is a hierarchy in the facades allowing transparency and lightness. It is a contrast between different materials.•StiltsInstead of perpendicular piles of Le Corbusier, Rem Koolhaas uses compensatory "stilts", reminiscent of the playful designs of British architect Will Alsop. Koolhaas makes stilts metrically arranged in music. A forest of pillars vertically angled in different ways, serving to support volumes upstairs.•Terrace-gardenLike the Villa Savoye of Le Corbusier, the prismatic volumes have a beer garden, connected by a large pool of 30m2. The cover generally unusable, is treated as a facade, allowing beautiful views of the city.•Windows in rowThe bands of windows are both prismatic volumes and planes that cut the house, surrounding it. The nature of the environment falls interiors. The continuity of the coating in the apartments upstairs is only interrupted by bands of windows.

MaterialsThe main materials used for the structure were reinforced concrete and steel columns. The cladding slate, concrete, corrugated aluminum or copper lacquered, polished anodized aluminum uprights, clear glass and frosted greens .Large glass windows pierce the concrete walls at garden level making the living spaces seem totally enveloped by nature. The glass walls create a permeable barrier between the inside and outside that slides completely open to the garden. Although the perimeter of the villa is found almost closed glass at garden level full, is not completely transparent in all sectors. The south facade is closed with transparent glass and sandblasted, hiding a part of the living room , but allows the passage of light.The minimalist kitchen is hidden from the outside, hidden behind a translucent wall curve within the public space.Along the north side, a thickened plywood partition spaces darkens family life. Only the elements of movement, occupying the space between the wall of wood and glass facade are visible from the outside.A narrow concrete ramp leading from the entrance to the garden level, and cantilevered steps provide access from the living room upstairs.Independent apartments upstairs are clad with corrugated aluminum contrasting shades, one with an aluminum finish and one with a copper layer of lacquer that gives it a reddish hue. The corrugated plates are oriented horizontally, reinforcing the orientation of the apartments in contrast to the central volume. The material covers the bottom of each box apartment, even extending through the interior, emphasizing reading volume on the surface. The staircase, which ascends from the public space above the apartment seems to slip through an opening in the volume of continuous aluminum.Thin steel columns painted in black and gray tones support the higher of the apartments upstairs, overlooking the street facade.

CRITICAL REGIONALISM• The term ‘Critical Regionalism’ was first coined by Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre

and later more famously and pretentiously by Kenneth Frampton in “Towards a Critical Regionalism : Six points of an architecture of resistance”

• According to Frampton, critical regionalism should adopt modern architecture critically for its universal progressive qualities but at the same time should value responses particular to the context. Emphasis should be on topography, climate, light, tectonic form rather than scenography and the tactile sense rather than the visual.

• According to Tzonis and Lefaivre, critical regionalism need not directly draw from the context, rather elements can be stripped of their context and used in strange rather than familiar ways.

• Critical regionalism is different from Regionalism which tries to achieve a one-to-one correspondence with vernacular architecture in a conscious way without consciously partaking in the universal.

• It is considered a particular form of post-modern response in developing countries, not to be confused with postmodernism as architectural style.

• Architects involved are-– Alvar aalto– Raj Rewal– Tadao Ando– Charles Correa– B V Doshi

TADAO ANDO