Progettospore

Cake House

Cake House
© Riccardo Magherini

CAKE HOUSE

Progettospore

ARCHITECTS
Progettospore

LOCATION
Pistoia, Italy

CATEGORY
Houses

PROJECT YEAR
2014

PHOTOGRAPHS
Riccardo Magherini

Text description provided by architect

The Cake House is a project for the extension of a two-familiy house.

Cake House
© Riccardo Magherini
Cake House
© Riccardo Magherini

1 - ANALYSIS AND OBSERVATIONS:

The existing house is located in a residential area of the town which was built between 1950 and 1970 and is characterized by one or two-family houses with a garden.

The client's needs were to increase the living space of 20 per cent, without diminishing the garden area. After a preliminary analysis it was decided to act on the south-west side of the house that was facing the garden and it could then offer a new view on the town. 

Cake House
© Riccardo Magherini
Cake House
© Riccardo Magherini

From the beginning it was clear that one of the main problems would have been the adjustment to the existing volume of the house because operating on that side of the house would have mean to completely upset the existing balance of it.

2 - THE PROJECT

We did not simply want to expand or enlarge the existing structure but we rather had the idea that the volume boost should come out of something completely new in relation to the original shape.

Cake House
© Riccardo Magherini
Cake House
© Riccardo Magherini

We then decided that our project would have been based on the aritmetic concept of addiction and subtraction rather than on a simple expansion. A full part of the existing building was removed to obtain the appropriate platform where to build the new installment.

3 - THE CAKE

The Cake project, as it was called, abide by the rules defined in our Tetracube protocol. We already knew our blueprint would have been a primitive three-dimension graphic to add on the existing volume, but it was not enough. We needed specific rules to shape it.

Cake House
© Riccardo Magherini
Cake House
© Riccardo Magherini

In our various, also fortuitous research, we noticed that some stratified cakes had the structure that we needed: a simple basic shape that can gradually become more complex subctrating parts of it at different dephts.

The amusing part of it and also the most significative one was that the coloured layers could function as a memory mark of what was taken away off the block. Layers are thus the visual link to what was there previously. In this way the final shape can be a way 'to read' the initial one. A project with 'time' inside.

Cake House
© Riccardo Magherini
Cake House
© Riccardo Magherini

Following our Tetracube design protocol we started to create different functional shapes trough simple subctractions. By cutting out a small portion in the roof, for example, we realized the kitchen unit.

Cake House
© Riccardo Magherini

The same procedure was used for the windows shutters even if in this case the subtracted parts weren't 'reused' for a different purpose.

Shutters were put on mobile carriages and when they sweep on they show the stratified inner part of the cake, now thus revealed: so basically the shutters are the display of our projectual concept.

Cake House
© Riccardo Magherini


Cake House
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Cake House
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Cake House
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Cake House
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Cake House
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Cake House
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Cake House
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Cake House
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Cake House
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Progettospore
T +39 0573 1780852
Progettospore
Via della Madonna, 71, 51100 Pistoia PT, Italy