Chistian Bourdais, a French entrepreneur, decided to leave behind his life as specialized design furniture dealer, to become a curator and commissioner of architecture in a very peculiar way. He decided to establish a space where architects could design without any impositions of the landscape, code or a so called client. Christian started to collect a series of freely commissioned designs for a remote site set against the backdrop of the majestic natural park of "Los Puertos de Beceite" in the Spanish region of Aragon: Solo Houses, with the aim of experiencing architecture in its purest form. With this conditions, we decided to explore our most radical form of engaging with the domestic environment, one that does not impose a way of inhabiting by labelling spaces according to its desired function, but one that explores a new type of space that can be individually interpreted by its physical architectural-given possibilities and its relationship with the natural landscape. For that, we aesthetically defined one module that replicates, doubles, and stacks spreading in the landscape with no intention other than providing refugee with a variety of specific relations to its immediate context. Our design of a Solo House consists of 23 identically dimensioned cubes that are individualised by carved openings in different configurations.
The cubes branch out in every direction, horizontally and vertically, to embrace and value the views and to invite the user to discover the landscape in more than just one way. The cubes are placed on site allowing for underground courtyards to open up to the sky and to offer intimate spaces. In the exterior, lightly designed panels and staircases not only guide the occupant, but also become platforms that accentuates the tectonics of the complex. Un-programmed cubes, except for a swimming pool, appear scattered in the landscape becoming ruins in direct dialogue with an existing stone house and entice the users to walk around, get lost and contemplate.
