light of nature
International Architecture Competition for the creation of a sleeping unit for a
meditation comunity in Portugal.
Honourable mention
location
Vale de Moses, Portugal
year
2021
team
with Nathalie Esposito and Ugo Felici Giunchi
Light of Nature is a project about the relationship between Humans and Nature. How can Man and nature peacefully coexist,or even better learn, increment and help each other?
The proposal brings forward 3 main concepts:
1. Use of local materials and simplicity of construction, which makes the little sleeping pods easy to build with local materials and manpower.
2. Recycle of energies and resources.
3. Exaltation of the experience of being in nature by stimulating sight, hearing, smells but also by playing with thermal comfort.
The project is very clearly characterized by three cuts which are at the same time a visual telescope into the landscape and a soft filter through which the trees can melt with the inside. The longitudinal cut is the main spine of the little pod, connecting all the spaces and passing from dark to light, it connects inside and outside playing with different temperatures, views and ways of relating to nature.
construction
A series of movable panels forms one of the central aspects of the project.
Two transversal cuts make the perception of the building (of 23m2) more playful. The first one is formed by a total length window which floods the space with light giving the opportunity to utilise the area with a little desk.
The second creates a centrality in the project and can be used in different ways.
The project is composed of a wooden structure formed with local material.
The same type of wood also forms the outside skin of the pod, assembled in 16 panels of ca. 70cm, while the inside is coated with cork panels. Grey water produced in the bathroom will be directly stored into a phytodepuration tank.
wooden structure
wooden panels
coarck insulation
wood and
polycarbonate façade
coark interior
walls and floors