LONGHOUSE
The concept of “longhouse” has been existing for a long time. In the book “A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction”, Christopher Alexander pays special attention to the shape of a narrow-elongated house.
He talks about the great influence that the shape of a building has on people’s sense of comfort and
well-being through their subjective perception of characteristics such as overcrowding or privacy.
Key characteristics of the design:
Simplicity: lack of complexity, naturalness, conciseness.
Austerity: the absence of pretentiousness, rationalism.
Majesty: inherent grandeur, something that commands respect.
The essential qualities of the design:
An interrupted line. The building turns out to be quite long. I would not want to create a feeling of cramped or confined pace. To prevent this, I made passages through the building which allow it to be perceived as something discontinuous and intermittent rather than a solid blank wall.
Transparency. The building is quite light and transparent, an effect which will be achieved by the choice of materials and the positioning of the windows taking up a large part of the façade. The windows of my design are opposite the windows of the existing building next to it, so the light will shine through both buildings. Maintaining illumination with permeating light is one of the main aims of my design. Light and sunshine play a major role and I wanted to build up this feeling.
Height. The height of the building is three floors. This is the average height of buildings at the manufakture area. A building of this height would not block the cultural heritage monument and would cast little or no shadow on it.
Appropriateness
Architecture should not be out of tune with the context, whatever it may be, it should complement it and look congruous.
In my case, this was not an easy task as there is a cultural heritage building on the same site. For my design to be relevant, it must not run afoul the existing one.
Materiality and Contrast
The design of my building is distinguished by its material characteristics, namely, it consist of materials that contrast the red brick existing building.
Multifunctionality
Let’s talk about function of the house. It was originally designed as a multifunctional object, building consists of three inner spaces. I deliberately moved all utilities outside the building, placing them on the perimeter, so my building becomes versatile and multifunctional.
