Elizabeth Deutschmann
„Villa“. RWTH Aachen (Germany)
Site
A villa is to be designed on a steep and north facing slope property in the city of Lüttich, surrounded by rails, an international highway and an avenue, all bearing dense traffic. Its intention is to offer a shelter for creative working and representation, temporarily donated to an artist or scientist. But how to create a source of inspiration or even simple concentration amongst such a restricting surrounding? Direct neighbourhood of infrastructure, mostly considered as a positive location factor, in this case for its disturbing emissions turns out to be completely destructive for the design of a villa considering a classical typology. Any generous spatial extensions or openness seem to be impossible.
For this reason my design proposes a tower: a building at the same time turning inward and dissociating clearly from its chaotic urban surrounding, but also claiming attention as an urban landmark underlining the cultural and represantative importance of its inherent institution.
Figure
The centering figure of a pentagon as the basic geometry supports the intention of an inward-looking building. A square as a second structure-bearing element is inserted in the center of the pentagon and rotated to one mirror-axis. Self-generating rules evoked by the position of both figures create a geometrical system that focusses on an introspective order.
Inside
Despite its typologically irritating compact outward appearance the inside of the tower tries to adopt characteristic spatial features and atmospheric attributes of a villa. A spiraling sequence of chambers of different size and height is surrounding a square hall that on each level identifies a main function. The chambers complete the use of the halls, interconnected they group to smaller units and room sequences. An omission of some chambers permits illumination and a broader extension of the halls.
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