Description
The Villa dall’Ava by Rem Koolhaas and his Rotterdam practice emerged from a very special topographical and urban situation. This house for a married couple and their daughter met the client’s wish for a view over the city of Paris and a swimming pool on the roof. The sloping site of the plot on the outskirts of the St. Cloud villa quarter is indicated in the interior by a ramp that connects the street level–with the main access and the drive to the garage–with the higher garden level. Its swivelled position is a response to the kink in the site outline, contrasting with the otherwise orthogonal structure of the house; the ramp has a concrete slab as a spine outside the building. The main living space is arranged as an almost completely glazed area at garden level along this ramp. Above this, two separate apartments are positioned at the ends, a bedroom area for the parents and one for the daughter; their cubature is distinct from that of the rest of the building. They are displaced in relation to each other in such a way that it is possible to see the city silhouette from both. A swimming pool and a fenced roof garden at the very top provide a panoramic view. Koolhaas’s love of a wide variety of material combinations can also be seen in this design: concrete and steel for the load-bearing structure, slate, exposed concrete and aluminium with copper as claddings, clear, green and sand-blasted glass. Freely-placed stilt-like high columns, windows in continuous bands framed in coloured corrugated metal cladding, and not least a red wire mesh fence for the roof garden are ironic comments on Le Corbusier’s villa architecture on the outskirts of Paris in the early 20th century.
Drawings
Site plan
Axonometric view with position of the main living area
Ground floor: drive from the street to the garage, access with entrance area and ramp, ancillary rooms in the rear section
Second floor: glazed living area with central kitchen, ramp, entrances on both sides to separate bedrooms above, outdoor access to the roof terrace with swimming pool
Third floor: separate bedrooms on the top level with view over Paris
Longitudinal section with access level, main living area and separate apartments
Photos
Top view of the house from the access road
Interior view of the living area on the garden level
Originally published in: Klaus-Peter Gast, Living Plans: New Concepts for Advanced Housing, Birkhäuser, 2005.