Description

The box is at pains to keep its distance. Roberto Briccola’s cube stands on a sloping site on four round concrete piers, with a distinct space between it and the ground. The impression is that not a stone was moved, not a blade of grass was trampled down while it was being built: the endless grassy slope flows nonchalantly under the building, scarcely paying it any attention at all. And this is exactly what the architect intended. He wanted to leave the natural landscape with its existing softly undulating modulations unscathed, in stark contrast with this artificial product called a ‘building’ with its sharp-edged, prismatic cubature. This entirely classical dialogue is all the more dramatic as the comparatively small building volume is encircled by the powerful mountain massifs of Ticino in Switzerland.

The design of the building also follows Briccola’s logical implementation of this idea: a simple, slender rectangular block with clear lines, with its longitudinal access set against the slope. The result is a generous aperture on one narrow side only on the ground floor, the living area, which is accessed from the back and opens up a vista at the front. The key here was not so much the wide aperture with an all-round view and impressive panorama, but rather a sense of controlled, concentrated looking as an extension of the living space over the terrace indentation, following the orientation of the building. The bedroom area for four people with small, carefully placed perforated windows is fitted in on top quite simply. The cube is timber-built and has an interior finish in laminated wooden sheets; it is clad in horizontal larch on the outside. This reminder of the old Ticino storehouses, some of which still exist, makes the structure seem completely new and yet to belong where it is.

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Originally published in: Klaus-Peter Gast, Living Plans: New Concepts for Advanced Housing, Birkhäuser, 2005.