design et al are delighted to announce FGMF Arquitectos have enjoyed further shortlisting success at this year’s International Design and Architecture Awards with their Sliding Pergolas House project, shortlisted for the Residential £1-£2.5 Million Award.
Upon being walled at its limits, the house could be turned inside, rather than outside, creating thus a patio house. In a 500m² site, FGMF Arquitectos were faced with the proposition of designing a highly unique ‘inverted home’. The client, a professor specialising in technological development, desired some unusual solutions. His wife, in the other hand, longed for a rather traditional type of residence that provided maximum internal space from the site’s challenging proportions. With these factors crucial to the build, the South American firm designed a house which was meticulous in its conception and entirely creative.
The architects divided the plot into sectors of various volume and located them at strategic points along the site. These ‘blocks’ were to become the foundation of the design and brought about the necessary elements of transforming a space into a fully functioning home. The result was a positively tense, although purposefully blurred, boundary between built and unbuilt space, bestowing different characteristics upon said spaces.
In order to enhance this ambiance further, as well as to make the gardens part of the interior, the exterior walls are washed with lights at night, intensifying their position as the true limits of the house. The limits of the building space thus became, in the beholder’s gaze, the walls that enclose the site, and not the interior walls that traditionally limit a certain room. This paradigm change in the environment perception is central to the design’s reasoning; a 160m² room thus receives the vastness of a 500m² home. The final design featured an abundance of glass to maximise sun exposure and an enclosed pool meticulously integrated to the garden aspect of the design. Whilst challenging the project proved the truly innovative nature of the architectural design industry and presented a purposeful examination of perception.
