CRYSTAL

“Architecture starts with a line”. Just like Oscar Niemeyer has once reflected, that line, as trigger of an organizational idea, decided to become immortalized, materializing itself in the white concrete wrap that has the function of a house. The context in which the work is immersed represents a priviledged natural environment with abundant green space. With an austere language and with no ornaments whatsoever, the Cristal House is implanted on the land so as to take full advantage of the context. The inner space is constituted by an a utility area, which includes the ‘rigid’ programmes, thus liberating the perimeter, strengthening the relations with the exterior and respecting the visuals. The stripe of programmes is placed together with the vertical circulation, which connects the inferior public level with the superior private one. At the same time, the utility area divides the house into two well-defined linear areas: to the southeast, a band of circulation and service is organized, and the northeast is where the social activities take place without losing, at any moment, the characteristic special continuite, which provides fluency and dynamism. The structure is developed through concrete columns that support the stripe, defining a structural skin that is different from the glass skin that is erected as the perimeter enclosure panel.

The faÇades of the house are constituted by life itself, that is, the same functions and needs reflect its own architecture. The pure lines allow a clean view of the main ideas of minimalism in each of the details resulting in a designed functionally thought for the total enjoyment of the green area and of the incomparable sunlight by the avant garde touch that characterizes it. Quoting Le Corbusier, ‘The house has to be the case of life, the machine of happiness,’ the objective was materialized in that crystal case where life takes place.