18 STEPS

Competition 1st Prize - Students Residence - Athens - 2010

How to design collective housing for the generation of individualized cyberspace? By eliminating the traditional floor division, it is possible to give each resident its own floor, while being part of the continuous collective realm (the circulation).

The stepped residence undoes the traditional division between private and communal: the circulation expands to the point it becomes shared space, conquering room from the private realm, opening in precise points: the sloped small auditorium, the garden void, and expands on the top in large communal terraces, that take advantage of the setbacks.

The rooms are stripped to the minimum, a space to sleep and study, they follow the model of monastery cells. Their domain can easily expand into the collective gallery, by opening the wall that separates them from the gallery: the communal experience becomes an individual choice, and the slope is animated by the humor of its inhabitants. Each cell is served by individual toilets integrated in the perimeter: a wall of services that protects the interior, allowing for an unexpected and utopian open plan. In the thick skin of the building, one can have a shower in the balcony.

 

Team: João Prates Ruivo, Raquel Maria Oliveira, Tudor Vasiliu, André Adonis. Renders: Panoptikon. Client: Oliaros www.upto35.com.