Dream Home : The Essence
I have always dreamt to live in a house; since I was a child, and until now. For me, it is a safe place, a place you are happy to go to after a long day, a place you like to enjoy just on its own, a comfortable place where you feel like home.
Truth is I have never lived in a house.
Thanks to my parents, I got the chance to travel a lot: visiting, meeting incredible people, adapting to new situations, and living in pleasant flats in France, South America and Africa. This life gave me the pleasure of discovering various cultures, landscapes, social values. I guess this half nomadic life and my aim to one day live in a house, which since the very beginning was an ambivalent feeling, pushed me to study architecture.
I still remember the first time I thought about my «dream home». I was about twelve years old, passionate about Japan and its culture and extremely introverted. My type of house deeply reflected my personality. It was out of context, fully closed on the outside world, surrounding a patio full of colourful flowers and carp koi thanks to a wooden engawa with a secret entrance in the front and a giant library in the back. When I think about it again today, as an architect and traveller it was the beginning of a long journey, still moving forward, toward a living space complementary to nature and focused on the inner self. This focus aims to develop balance and safety but also stimulate both creativity and imagination.
As years go by, the dream house evolved thanks to experiences, values and cultural significance that are defining the authenticity, atmosphere and close relationship between the human being and its architecture. I now think the sense of home, the idea of belonging somewhere, is characterised by the poetic appreciation of the present moment and the unique definition we give to the quality of living spaces.
This paper is for me an opportunity not to write or draw a detailed project, which is something I already have to work upon daily; but an architectural abstraction that defines the essence of my dream house.
As a start, nature would surround the building. By definition, it would have a human scale, not too big, not too small, a bit like a cabin. I have never truly appreciated the feeling generated by urban life in megalopolis which is a synonym of stress and anxiety; and every single moment in nature appears like a relief, a time to recentre and think better. With this in mind, the house would be like a step back. The apparent simplicity of its architecture would allow the building to disappear within its context, giving an impression of belonging where it is and completing its surrounding.
The walls would develop themselves around majestic trees like porous elements inviting branches, leaves and the seasonal variation within the spaces. The inside would be cosy and focused on giving views, letting natural light flows. The circulation between living and the working area would be outdoor, a space with no ceiling to frame the sky and experience the sun, the wind, the rain and the snow. This moment would permit the body to feel the comfort of the indoor spaces. The choice of natural and local materials would support this feeling: cold and elegant stone on the outside; warm and minimalist timber work on the inside, wide and comfortable straw bales and clay for the walls. These choices would invite us to touch, one after another, smooth, rough, soft surfaces developing both contrast and balance.
Each space would have its connection to the exterior, the living room, the bedroom but also the circulation, the kitchen and the bathroom which is sadly too often a space designed in darkness instead of focusing on developing a moment of well-being. The light would become a building material; the openings would allow a variety of rays and shadows that would play along with the textures of the materials.
The walls would be used and positioned according to strict needs, eliminating the excess of the enclosure and helping the creation of flexible use and natural mobility. The understanding of intimacy would become an aspect of usage as if entering the various spaces allowed the ritualisation of daily actions.
A part of the building would be detachable and movable to allow travel and discovery; like a contemporary evolution of a mobile home-made out of a light structure and minimal furniture. As, the fixed part would remain, like a rock, a base to protect us, the mobile one would let us freed our adventurous mind within the wild, and on the road; forming a whole.
The spaces would welcome build-in furniture or pieces brought from travels thanks to the mobile part to enjoy an immobile journey. The strategic location would allow gatherings and its spaces conviviality. The elegant lines and proportions define luxury and enhance the ability of the project to remain true to itself. To highlight a constructive element and give vitality to the construction, colours, picked wisely, would be used. The apparent structure would bring stability and enter in conversation with the wide openings without even noticing it, like a pleasant reminder of the first human construction made out of a lonely roof.
Keeping a traveller mind, and focusing not on the destination but on the journey itself, the best part of this project would be its construction. Meeting my partner, passionate about the woodwork, has been a great inspiration, and years after years, the dream remains: building our own house. And we can picture ourselves developing a design thanks to trials and errors, an imperfect architecture full of significance, full of sweat, full of care. Each piece crafted and thought to suit a chosen way of life that can always be improved. Everything would be developed like a living organism, breathing and maturing through time. The building would act like the missing link between us, my partner and I, and our surrounding. For that, the house would give a sense of purpose, a transcendence of what we are, and we aim.
