Exemplar 1: OMA - Maison A Bordeaux

Plan view of Maison A Bordeaux
(GIZMODO, 2008)


The house is an environmental filter:

The houses position atop the hill allows the natural environment to play a vital role in the conditions of the house. The middle living area of the home is essentially a glass room, allowing maximum light in and reduce the requirement for synthetic lighting. The glass room which takes up half the level is open out towards the view allowing wind to pass into the house.

(OMA, 2010)

The lower level which is cavern level below ground is sheltered from most light during the day. This below ground positioning will mean little heat is able to penetrate into these rooms. As this level is used for more intimate family life, it is less used during the day and will therefore require less natural lighting. The outside space is also covered in grass, meaning natural cooling will come into place through the absorption of heat into the ground rather than the house.

The top level contains bedrooms and more personal spaces and controls light through the 'portholes' carved into the concrete walls on each side. The large porthole at the end of the house can also be opened, allowing breezes to pass into the house and through the other side, keeping the environment cool. The green environment around the home will allow natural cooling and with the high positioning and location, the house should remain a good temperature throughout the summer. The below ground level combined with the concrete shell of the house should mean the house is kept at a warm temperature throughout summer too.

(GIZMODO, 2008)

The house is a container of human activities:

This house is has diverse use for human activities due to the reasons for its construction. The male owner of the house became wheelchair bound, but still requested a complexity to the design. The house allows for private uses on the top and bottom floor, while the middle floor allows for daytime activities and more entertaining or public gatherings.

The unique form of the house comes in the 3 x 3.5m lift located towards the rear of the house. this lift provides the man with all of his everyday office needs and more, while allowing him to travel between all three floors.

(Image OMA, 2008)

All everyday activities can be undertaken on the middle floor and it is only the family that requires any other space. Furthermore the house has been designed with a courtyard area that separates the normal house from the guesthouse/cleaners house. The house itself contains 5 bedrooms while the guest house contains 2.

(Image OMA, 2008)

The house is a delightful experience:

The house provides an enjoyable experience to those who live in it and those who visit it through its unique and well thought out design. Inhabitants are able to site in the middle level and enjoy the spectacular views over Bordeaux or can go off to their own personal space and do whatever they wish. The house provides good separation through the use of thick concrete walls and unusual wall positioning to give rooms different shapes and sizes.

(Image OMA, 2008)

Time Magazine named Rem Koolhaas's Maison à Bordeaux "Best Design of 1998." The house was designed to accommodate a man who was confined to a wheel chair after an automobile accident. Koolhaas describes the building as three houses because it has three separate sections layered on top of one another.


The lowest part, Koolhaas says, is "a series of caverns carved out from the hill for the most intimate life of the family."


The middle section is a smaller 3 x 3.5 meter (10 x 10.75 feet ) glass room where the wheelchair bound resident has his private living area. The entire room is an elevator platform which rises and lowers to other levels of the house. Bookshelves line one wall of the elevator shaft.
The upper level, which Koolhaas calls the "top house," has separate areas for the husband and wife and for their children
(Architecture.about, 2010)

The lowest level is cave-like - a series of caverns carved out from the hill for the most intimate life of the family.The highest house is divided in a house for the couple and a house for the children.The most important house is almost invisible, sandwiched in-between: a glass room - half inside, half outside - for living. (Bradbury, 2009)

The man had his own «room», or rather «station». A lift, 3 by 3.5 m. that moved freely between the 3 houses; changing plan and performance when it "locked” into one of the floors or floated above. A single «wall» intersected each house, next to the elevator. It contained everything the husband might need - books, artwork and in the cellar, wine...The movement of the elevator changed each time the architecture of the house. A machine is its heart. (e-architect, 2010)

References

Architecture.about, 2010 http://architecture.about.com/library/blkoolhaas-maisonbordeaux.htm (Accessed 12/3/2010)

e-architect, 2010 http://www.e-architect.co.uk/bordeaux/maison_a_bordeaux.htm (Accessed 13/3/2010)

GIZMODO. 2008. http://www.gizmodo.fr/2008/03/29/koolhaas_la_maison_transformers.html (Accessed 15/3/2010)


Bradbury, Dominic. 2009. The Iconic House: Architectural masterworks since 1900. Thames and Hudson. 2009.

(OMA) Office For Metropolitan Architecture.2010. http://www.oma.nl/ (Accessed 14/3/2010)