Co-Villa explores a way of considering architecture as an informal yet permanent construct that allows for continuous change as technology, uses, material, lifestyles shift and develop through time. The Villa aims to create a kind of test bed for thinking about the social dynamics of the informal appropriation of space by a community of inhabitants living together within an established matrix of interconnecting rooms.

The layout is used in order to set up a continuous, non-hierarchical environment of units. The connections between these units offer multiple vistas that create a layering of space which in turn begins to dissolve distinct boundaries.

The villa provides an abstract architecture where space is defined as an availability of uses. It is an architectural system which allows for the articulation of spaces that are identical in size (36m2 cubes) (6x6x6x6) but qualitatively unique through different forms of appropriation.

Co-villa.

The co-villa establishes a space in which people and their environment mutually include and define each other, offering a platform for reflection, interaction and creative participation with no hierarchy or ownership. Nobody has exclusive rights to any particular part of the building, so the process of inhabitation becomes one of constant negotiation.
The proposal offers an excess of space for domesticity, work and leisure situated in a rural community.

Rural Portugal.

Rural communities in the area are at risk of poverty, neglect and loneliness - many of the small rural towns are often derelict with only a few clusters of residents facing severe isolation as many of the younger generation head for the cities. The Co-villa offers an inclusive environment where old and young can interact through an architecture in progress that goes beyond todays particular lifestyles.

Testing the grid through inhabitation.

Mies, Picasso

When we think of an ambiguous architecture, that transcends time and function that can go beyond todays particular lifestyles it is it a difficult challenge to test, so In order to develop an understanding for different ways of inhabitation a space I produced a series of case studies that looked at various directions of domesticity describing the relationship between space, furniture, material, context and personal routines.

I developed a strategy by testing these different scenarios by playing a game where I swapped houses with Mies and Picasso, Mies inhabited Picasso’s villa and Picasso

inhabited House with Three Patios. By doing this it begins to highlight the question of how relevant is the architecture? if the spatial reward can be completely defined through use and furniture and what specific architectural elements contribute to a good space?

The case studies also looked at Andy Warhole and The Factory, which highlighted the creativity that extends from everyday life through his disorder, which takes on a certain value of its own.

I used the same technique in my proposal as a way to suggest the friction between the conflicting lifestyle that would inhabit the co-villa over time.