Cabinet
Home is a wooden construction formed as a set of large steps from the ground
towards the sky. It is made to receive rain and sunshine from above, and use
these elements to create atmosphere and energy.
On
ground level are the social spaces tuned to the Roman life style, with kitchen
and dining opening to own garden with rain water collected to a Fontana. First
floor is a living room or library, and finally in top floor bedroom offering
view to the sky. The exterior is white to reflect the sunshine and make the
building suit its surroundings, while the interior is a kind of a big shadow
that makes it possible to rest the eye and body from the brightness and heat
outdoors. The whole house can be detached into three container-sized units, and
transported with normal road transport to the final location.
With
this project we wanted to encourage the use of solar energy generally, and
especially in areas where sunshine is plenty as in the Mediterranean countries.
Secondly, our homes in Western culture are built both too big and too
expensively. At the same time it is possible to build a contemporary home with
totally ecological simple materials as wood and stone and earth, and to achieve
higher quality of living with less square meters. Herein should lay the main
focus in architecture theory and practice today, not in some formal
extravagance or egocentric prestige. Architecture is the theatre of our
primeval social and private behaviour, fulfilment of our biological true needs,
whether we realize, accept and implement this fact or not.
Cabinet Home is based on a simple idea of
combining three nature elements that are freely there to be used for no one’s
loss and everybody’s gain: trees that grow by themselves, rain and sunshine
that come rain or shine.