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Nest and Cave House
Nest and Cave House
Opatija, Croatia
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Other Projects by Turato Architects / Idis Turato
Nest and Cave House
Opatija, Croatia
Type
YEAR
2012
SIZE
25,000 sqft - 100,000 sqft
Photos
Text by Iva Marčetić - The
hinterland of the Opatija Riviera in Croatia is dotted with villas (built
within a century and a half). Their upper, front side reveals nothing but entrances
beyond which we can only imagine their spaciousness. Their scale and relation
to the bay are entirely dependent on the seafront slope (perhaps, it is the tension
arising from the assumption of something hidden
what gives the spatial frame of Opatija’s hinterland its appeal).
Although the Nest and Cave
remains typologically and morphologically true to the surrounding space as a
whole, it develops its "hidden" side through the dialectics of
domination over and subordination to the landscape. So, the house and the place
it renders are not structured solely by the slope onto which they are built (as
it is the case with most villas in Opatija). Instead, it actively constructs
the landscape and intertwines with it by laying down the ground level (landscape)
and by placing on it an upper Object
which hovers above as a displaced level. Therefore, the house consists of an
entrenched concrete bunker (the sleeping area) on which a steel spatial grid
structure is placed and which elongates into a 17 meter long console. Despite
it being constructed within a reductive registry of functions, with only two
structural elements and with its apparent division into the sleeping and living
area, the house creates a wondrous, ever shifting experience and interspaces.
This is achieved by a simple dislocation of the upper segment in relation to
the lower one and by inscribing it into the depth of the parcel.
The dislocated upper part and its hypertrophic
console express, by alternating the shadow and the hidden with openness and hospitality,
the quintessential tension of a Mediterranean house: the battle of the sun and
the shadow. The Nest and Cave house becomes
a reinterpretation of its heritage by achieving a full form via projecting the Object (the shadow) and opening the void in
the body (landscape). The console leaves behind a shadow which (depending on
the time of day) gives volume to the living area (“the heart of the house”, as
the author calls it) and, by alternating the intersection of its axes (as much
as the angle of the sun will allow it), it shifts around thus constantly
creating yet another intimate area of the house. Through its fenestration
facing away from the road and surrounding structures and by carefully framing the
landscape that penetrates and dictates the depth or flatness of the interior,
the visually (and statically) dominant white shape (the aluminum covered steel
grid) invites the Kvarner Bay inside.
Idis Turato, the architect, having
to face such a dominant landscape, attempts to explain his raison d'être behind it in the words of Buckminster Fuller,: “(…) The
main question is how to control the space compassed; and subsequently how to
develop selective control of compassed space (...)“How to simultaneously
capture broadness, enable intimacy, while continuously standing on the edge in
front of unobstructed views?
The Object dominates over the landscape, while the landscape creates
the interiority of the object - a continuous interchange between the frame and what
is being framed, the House on the Edge. Its strict geometry and
sculptural attributes (the architect's control) provide a necessary foundation
for a future narrative (its alternations depending on the viewpoint). They also
maintain spatial relations just accurately enough to assure a possibility of an
unforeseen event (such as freedom in linearity of enfilade).
The view of the house and the view from the
house are in a constant clash of inclusion and exclusion. Beneath someone's
nest and cave we are able to observe the sculptural relationship between the
landscape and the house (the other place).
On the other hand, when being inside it, we become beneficiaries of witnessing
the subliminal beauty enabled by the controlled landscape frames- carefully
planned axes and angles successfully separate the "initial resources
from the final product" 1. The control over a spatial
frame allows for a "passionate uncertainties of thought" 1, regardless of whether we are
the observers or the users and of which story we are telling.1Bernard Tschumi, "Architecture
and Disjunction", AGM, 2004.
hinterland of the Opatija Riviera in Croatia is dotted with villas (built
within a century and a half). Their upper, front side reveals nothing but entrances
beyond which we can only imagine their spaciousness. Their scale and relation
to the bay are entirely dependent on the seafront slope (perhaps, it is the tension
arising from the assumption of something hidden
what gives the spatial frame of Opatija’s hinterland its appeal).
Although the Nest and Cave
remains typologically and morphologically true to the surrounding space as a
whole, it develops its "hidden" side through the dialectics of
domination over and subordination to the landscape. So, the house and the place
it renders are not structured solely by the slope onto which they are built (as
it is the case with most villas in Opatija). Instead, it actively constructs
the landscape and intertwines with it by laying down the ground level (landscape)
and by placing on it an upper Object
which hovers above as a displaced level. Therefore, the house consists of an
entrenched concrete bunker (the sleeping area) on which a steel spatial grid
structure is placed and which elongates into a 17 meter long console. Despite
it being constructed within a reductive registry of functions, with only two
structural elements and with its apparent division into the sleeping and living
area, the house creates a wondrous, ever shifting experience and interspaces.
This is achieved by a simple dislocation of the upper segment in relation to
the lower one and by inscribing it into the depth of the parcel.
The dislocated upper part and its hypertrophic
console express, by alternating the shadow and the hidden with openness and hospitality,
the quintessential tension of a Mediterranean house: the battle of the sun and
the shadow. The Nest and Cave house becomes
a reinterpretation of its heritage by achieving a full form via projecting the Object (the shadow) and opening the void in
the body (landscape). The console leaves behind a shadow which (depending on
the time of day) gives volume to the living area (“the heart of the house”, as
the author calls it) and, by alternating the intersection of its axes (as much
as the angle of the sun will allow it), it shifts around thus constantly
creating yet another intimate area of the house. Through its fenestration
facing away from the road and surrounding structures and by carefully framing the
landscape that penetrates and dictates the depth or flatness of the interior,
the visually (and statically) dominant white shape (the aluminum covered steel
grid) invites the Kvarner Bay inside.
Idis Turato, the architect, having
to face such a dominant landscape, attempts to explain his raison d'être behind it in the words of Buckminster Fuller,: “(…) The
main question is how to control the space compassed; and subsequently how to
develop selective control of compassed space (...)“How to simultaneously
capture broadness, enable intimacy, while continuously standing on the edge in
front of unobstructed views?
The Object dominates over the landscape, while the landscape creates
the interiority of the object - a continuous interchange between the frame and what
is being framed, the House on the Edge. Its strict geometry and
sculptural attributes (the architect's control) provide a necessary foundation
for a future narrative (its alternations depending on the viewpoint). They also
maintain spatial relations just accurately enough to assure a possibility of an
unforeseen event (such as freedom in linearity of enfilade).
The view of the house and the view from the
house are in a constant clash of inclusion and exclusion. Beneath someone's
nest and cave we are able to observe the sculptural relationship between the
landscape and the house (the other place).
On the other hand, when being inside it, we become beneficiaries of witnessing
the subliminal beauty enabled by the controlled landscape frames- carefully
planned axes and angles successfully separate the "initial resources
from the final product" 1. The control over a spatial
frame allows for a "passionate uncertainties of thought" 1, regardless of whether we are
the observers or the users and of which story we are telling.1Bernard Tschumi, "Architecture
and Disjunction", AGM, 2004.
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