SCI-Arc 

​

Design Studio led by Ramiro Diaz-Granados.

​

Semi-Floating / Semi-Detached

​

The project explores contested territory in terms of the limits of private and public within a conventional notion of residential architecture and the building-to-ground relationship within Mies van der Rohe’s body of work creating either suspended or grounded effect on a project.  

 

The semi-floating/semi-detached massing of the duplex explores the intersection and tension between the two ground connection types.  The project poses as a delicately articulated object with an inverted exterior proportion between solid and void in comparison to other projects by Mies, and is balancing on the farthest most elevated edge of the slanted plinth. The perforated marble-patterned metal panels provide both a secluded sanctuary environment for the tenants of the glass house hidden behind them, as well as reduce solar heat gain.

 

In search for a comfortable balance, approximately 70 percent of the site is designated to the immediate neighbors, thus, displacing the private living space of the duplex towards the street front and activating the often-dead interiority of a typical residential block.  The access for the neighbors to the “backyard” plinth follows another Miesian idea of unlimited universal space that can potentially host any program necessary for its function.  To resolve territorial issues, a boundary is gently defined by an artificial boulder landscape separating the private and public zones of the shared outdoor space.