House in Luanda patio and pavillion

Luanda,  -Angola-

2010

Design competition

Partners: LCA & parteners, Pasquale Di Lorenzo, Nicola Perrotta, Maria Angela Rea.

The project integrates conceptual elements of local tradition with a design logic that expresses a contemporary vision of living and sociality. The proposed scheme intends to accept the legitimate aspiration for growth and development of that part of the population likely to be excluded from the processes to modernize going on in the city of Luanda. The design take place from the tradition of the ancient towns of indigenous villages: in the residential complex each form of settlement and architectural presence is part of a unitary body, which is flexible in its possibilities of use. Within the suggested system the ordinary life permeates every architectural element. The interstices between the individual functions is connective tissue space dedicated to conviviality and everyday activities. Even the fence is not a mere border, but living and versatile space (can be bench element of shadow foothold and so on.). Traditional matrix occupies the centrality of the house: the well is intended as a source of life and ancestral link with the ground. The hole in the cover, which reflects the existence of the well, joins earth and heaven in a reading from top to bottom: the patio is the symbolic and conceptual union of the two natural elements. Starting from the mother cell (the living space contained in the fence and articulated around and within the inner family places) some hypotheses have been studied for aggregation, These studies have recovered a factor of continuity in the geometry of Kente cloth. A further effort to synthesize modern and local identity in an original development proposal based on the criterion of enhancing available skills and resources.