P003 → TENT
Function : Single Family House
Location: Pag, Croatia
This concept for a house originated from a motto “tent”.
Tent is a primitive form of settlement that consists of three different elements. The first is the skin – a light surface that encloses a vast open space. Then there are structure and ground that provide the support for the whole system. All o those components result in an object that is suspended somewhere between stability and tension. Something temporary but durable. On one hand thin and delicate, on the other, massive and heavy.
Both of this conditions could be translated into something more abstract, as a spatial quality. This what can be perceived more visually and what can affect us in more physical way. From what could create a more open spaces, like living and shared areas, to the more intimate rooms where dimensions and light are limited, where almost every surface of the room could be touched within the reach of our hands.
To embody those qualities in a building it is proposed to oppose one element to another, creating a massive concrete block (structure), upon which rests a thin surface made of the same material (skin).
While that movement creates a large open space under the tent, carvings in the block provide more intimate spaces.
The setting of the project is the Island of Pag in Croatia.
As one of the largest islands of the country, it stretches itself along the mainland overlooking several layers of overlapping hilly Croatian landscapes. The limestone that creates the island gives it a bright, moonlike character.
The site itself, is elevated approximately 70 meters above the sea level and is connected to the main road by traversing gravel road. There on top of this ridge the house is located. After passing the road one will arrive to the platform, where a car could be left and then continue by foot through a thin path up to the house. This path leads to the centre of the house, passing the garden with olive trees. The entry is the smaller living area that is a cut in the block. It faces on one side an open space of the tent, on the other, garden and the landscape. In the ground floor of the block there is also a kitchen, storage and a toilet.
To reach the bedrooms you have to take a narrow hidden staircase. Each bedroom level has on one side a bathroom and on the other a bedroom. Although being narrow the rooms are high, up to 4.5m, giving a sense of generosity in a small , cavelike space.
The whole structure is poured out of isolated concrete with addition of marble powder to achieve the bright tone, suitable to island’s landscape. The tent is made from a prestressed concrete sheet attached at the top and the base of the building.
This house would give an opportunity to live inside the heavy structure as well as in the landscape of this Croatian island, creating opposite conditions of living in one entity