arba- is dedicated to developing new housing solutions aiming at sustainability, affordability and interaction with the natural and the built environment.
arba- designs houses as functional, smooth, simple and optimal pieces. Their main purpose, ‘to serve as a dwelling’, is not separable from a second purpose: ‘allow to see through’. Such houses relate more to instruments than to buildings. As with musical instruments, lines and shapes are pure and minimal while allowing for a broad range of potential uses. The dweller is naturally involved in a game of uses and interactions with the garden, the neighbourhood, the landscape, the sun, the light…
The following are some of our built projects
and a number of experiments.
These are projects formed and fine-tuned by dialogue.
Here, budget and urban restrictions are not constraints; they are part of the design process.
Here, there is a constant endeavour to banish any voluntary or unnecessary architectural intention.
Instead, here, primacy is accorded to the landscape,
the site, the inhabitant, the material,
and the craftsman’s hand