House with No Style
Everywhere ι Developed World
“avoid all nostalgia, avoid the 50s, avoid the 60s, avoid palm trees, avoid (almost all) angles that are not 90 degrees, avoid color . . .”
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Michael Bell ¦ Design
House with No Style ι Everywhere ι Developed World ι “avoid all nostalgia,
avoid the 50s, avoid the 60s, avoid palm trees, avoid (almost all)
angles that are not 90 degrees, avoid color . . .”
Client Japan Architect
This
project was created for an annual open competition sponsored by Japan
Architect magazine. Each year an invited juror sets the parameters and
judges this competition, which is dedicated to themes
of housing and domesticity. In 1992, Rem Koolhaas was invited to act as
author and jury. In his call for entries, he solicited designs for a
“house with no style,” encouraging designers not only to
avoid “the frivolous and decorative,” but also to “avoid all nostalgia,
avoid the 50s, avoid the 60s, avoid palm trees, avoid (almost all)
angles that are not 90 degrees, avoid color . . .”
This
submission proposed that the house be turned inside out and that
occupation take place in the city. A torus-shaped space with a glazed
front area faces a suburban street; as one progresses through the
house, it alternately opens vertically to the sky and horizontally to
the landscape. The court is connected to the site with a covered
passage. The project is diagrammatic as an architectural proposal; it
functions as both architecture and narrative. It won a fourth place/
honorable mention prize and was one of sixteen projects recognized out
of 732 international submissions.
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