360-Degree Spiraling Round House
Tackling the tough space between public and private living, scenic views and solitary peace, sloped landscapes and flat living, this simple plan solves many fundamental house design problems with elemental style and elegant efficiency.
Rather than construct a rectangular home with prescribed paths and conventional spaces, a continuous curve was used by the architects of Subarquitectura to invite new perspectives, interactions and experiences inside and outside of this round house.
Much like a medieval fortress or ancient cave dwelling, the most private spaces – a windowless media and living room area – is found at the center of the structure, while shared areas and community places exist along the periphery.
The outermost layer features all-around views of the amazing natural landscape along the circumference of the circle/spiral. Though snapshots can be captured via the picture-frame-like windows, one that is engaged in a less restrictive way than one would be in a more traditional four-sided building with only four faces. (Images by David Frutos Ruiz).
“A unique opportunity for us is in reality a problem that’s been posed thousands of times: to construct a house with a public program of social relation, associated with the prívate life of a numerous family on a sloping plot of land with privileged views of the mountains outside Madrid. It has no one solution, there are many, they’re even catalogued in books about houses of a slope.”
“We try not to think of domestic spaces. On the contrary, we take as a point of reference works of engineering, motorway intersections, changes of direction. We proceed from generic solutions to the problem of descending, solutions that conceal great plasticity. We seek the poetic in all that seems to have been considered from the merely pragmatic point of view.”
“The result is the literal construction of a use diagram. In this instance, form does not follow function, but is instead function itself. Cyclical movement, routine and surprise turn into a way of living.”
