9x9x9

Academic project

Year: 2024
Type: Academic project

Description

An underground 9×9×9 metre home for an artist: a closed cube organised around a vertical void that takes in light from above.

The exercise asks for an underground 9 × 9 × 9 metre home for an artist. A cube sunk into the ground, with no outer façade: the project has to be thought from the inside, deciding what happens within the volume and how light comes down.

The house is split into three levels, each 3 metres high: the bedroom and bathroom on top, the kitchen and dining room in the middle, the living room and desk at the bottom. A single vertical void runs through all three. Natural light falls from above through that void, with a diagonal timber stair at its centre, and platforms reach out into it like balconies. The interior is made of raw, warm materials: round exposed-concrete columns, timber and black steel.

The house is also part of the artist's work: a sculpture on a platform, a mobile hanging by the stair, a zigzag column in the middle of the void and green boxes sticking out of the wall. No drawings were made: the project was worked directly in a physical model, and the renders here are its result.

Project decisions

01
A cube underground
The size set by the exercise is the form of the project: a 9 × 9 × 9 metre cube is sunk into the ground, and its 9 metres of height are divided into three 3-metre floors.
02
Light from above
The house has no façade: natural light enters from above, and curved surfaces at the top spread it down through the void.
03
A void and a stair
The three levels are not closed off: a wide void runs through them. A diagonal timber stair connects them, and the platforms, with glass guards, reach out like balconies so the corners of the house look at each other.
04
One use per level
The bedroom and bathroom on top, the kitchen and dining room with a reading corner in the middle, the living room and desk at the bottom. Uses are laid out level by level, and the void ties them together.
05
Raw materials, warm colours
Round exposed-concrete columns, timber in floors, stair and furniture, black steel in the shelving and a heavy table with the aggregate left visible. White walls and warm light make a single atmosphere for a house without direct sun.
06
The artworks are part of the house
A rusted-steel sculpture on a platform, a mobile by the stair, a zigzag column in the middle of the void and green boxes sticking out of the wall: the works are not decoration, they live together with the space of the house.
07
Thought through a model
No drawings were made: the project was worked directly in a physical model. The renders show the result, and the perspective section lets you see the three levels and the void at once.