The house, as a living space, has always been, for the architects, a privileged space of investigation and experimentation. An investigation that touches the economic and technology fields, embracing the production processes, as well as the inevitable dynamics of the evolution of society. Unfortunately, we are gradually becoming aware that the economic dimension, which is dependent on the market logic, delays the quality of the household life, and stops its evolution processes. This situation proves the undeveloped status of habitation, in contrast with the development in other areas, like health, aeronautics, or even genetics.
Family was never as changeable as in the contemporary age. This 'new' family has a demand for comfort and functionality that can be satisfied by technology and science. However, in the majority of the Portuguese houses built today, these demands remain unanswered. Its is our aim to reduce the number of workers in the construction process as well as the time spent in the same process. We can achieve this by increasing the space flexibility and integrating a greater number of prefabricated construction elements.
A contemporary house must be 'intelligent' because it must be beautiful, functional, comfortable, logic and able to save money in the maintenance and management. It must be capable of responding to safety, intimacy, comfort, and psychological pleasure.
The House, an exceptional place to live and a small element of the urban morphology, has always been a privileged theme, and a particularly studied one, to architects. The Industrial Revolution helped to create the utopia of a better world through the freedom from the enslavement by mechanical work and the production of quality to everyone. It was impossible to keep a balance between a social system based on the economy as a primary element and the act of providing the collective necessities in an equalitarian way. Consequently, it has generated a productive diversification according to the different economic possibilities of the consumers.
The house, isolated and individual, a place where the family rituals are performed, suffers nowadays the contradictions of the western society, where time overcomes space, and images substitute reality.
Recently, some experiences in works which ask for quick executions, and that, for various reasons, quadruplicated the execution time, making the clients tired and putting the contractors out of control, led us to despair. The situation conducted us to three ideas that reflect our current preoccupations in the project elaboration and that characterise this work.
The construction, consisting of layers of dirty, uncomfortable, wet, cold, and disorganised workmanship, which is still existing, in Portugal, is completely anachronistic. Even if this situation is comfortable to us, it is the result of a wrong project process, because it still does not introduce the processes of assembling lines of the industrial production, because it does not think in the work economy in terms of controlled management of assembling times, and because it does not apply the execution and assembling systems in work conditions in factory, with a minimal presence in the building dock , where the meteorological conditions are unpredictable.
The modern family needs flexible spaces, quickly changeable, where privacy is achieved without the necessity of putting up walls and closing doors. Consequently the leisure and social spaces become wider and more open.
The construction substance must be minimal and should correspond to the demands of comfort, hygiene, aesthetics, durability, and the minimal maintenance necessary to the contemporary man.
In what Home Control is concerned, we must admit that this is another necessary infra structure that should be introduced in the making of the project. The same happened with the sewer network, with the electric network, with the telephones network and with the mechanical infra structures. In addition, with the automobile air conditioning system, and with the windows automatic control. Not a long time ago, we used to wash dishes with our hands...
AUTHORS
FÁTIMA FERNANDES AND MICHELE CANNATÀ
COLLABORATION
FABIO GARRABETA
FILIPE AFONSO
HUGO DOURADO
INGRID BARROSO
JAVIER CALO
MIGUEL BARBOSA
VÍTOR FERREIRA
CLIENT
EXPONOR
LOCATION
MATOSINHOS. PORTUGAL
CONSTRUCTION
EMPREITEIROS CASAIS
FOUNDATIONS AND STRUCTURES
GOP -JOÃO MARIA SOBREIRA
WATER AND SEWAGE NETWORK
GOP - RAQUEL FERNANDES
MECHANIACL INSTALLATIONS AND EQUIPMENT
GET - ALFREDO COSTA PEREIRA
ELECTRICITY, TELEPHONES AND SECURITY
LIGHTPLAN - FERNANDO SILVA
DATE OF THE PROJECT
2002
DATE OF EXECUTION
DECEMBER 2002
AWARDS
2º Award in Habitação Singular contest, given by the Consejo Superior de los Colégios de Arquitectos de España (CSCAE). Madrid. Spain.
Honourable Mention in Habitação Singular contest, given by the Consejo Superior de los Colégios de Arquitectos de España (CSCAE). Madrid. Spain.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Uma casa Contemporânea in Arquitectura e Vida Magazine. September 2002. Nº 30. Pag. 64 and 65.
Uma casa com Inteligência in arquitectura & construção Magazine nº 20.
Casa Inteligente. Protótipo de Casa Contemporânea Fátima Fernandes e Michele Cannatà. ASA Publishers.
Protótipo de Casa Contemporânea in Guia da Arquitectura Portuguesa Moderna. Porto, Maia, Matosinhos, Vila Nova de Gaia. 1925-2002. ASA Publishers. Pag. 320 and 321.
Casa Exponor 2002 In Case nel Mondo, Federico Motta Editore, pags. 74 to 83.
The Smart House In Materia nº 41. Pags. 52 to 59.
Casa Exponor in Monograph Cannatà & Fernandes arquitectos Obras e Projectos 1984-2003, pags. 198 to 212.
