A house often enters a place that already exists: a street, a neighbourhood, a fabric of people and habits. Before even asking ourselves what house to build, it is worth asking what that place will become with it. This is where, for us, a residential project begins.
A house enters a context
Every building, by asserting itself, changes what surrounds it: the light that reaches the street, the views, the routes, the rhythm of the neighbourhood. That is why our client, in living too, is broader than whoever commissions the work: it is those who will live there, those who will pass by every day, the neighbourhood that receives the project and the generations to come. Designing a house means taking responsibility for all of this.
Starting from context
That is why we read the place before drawing the volumes: the orientation, the relationship with neighbouring buildings, the open spaces, the flows of people. A quality residential project is born from dialogue with the place, and is built on its real characteristics. The same thing that makes an office suited to those who use it makes a house suited to the neighbourhood that hosts it.
The shared spaces that build community
A set of homes becomes a community when it has shared spaces of value. It is the same idea that guides our method in offices, Community Based Design: we draw on the models of urban gathering – the square, the street, the places of encounter – that have always answered the need to be together. In residential they become courtyards, entrance halls, common areas, carefully designed thresholds between private and public: the spaces where neighbourhood relationships are born.
Giving back more than you take
Every project takes something from the place it enters: land, view, quiet. Our duty is to give back more – a street front that improves the neighbourhood, accessible greenery, spaces the community can enjoy. It is the principle we call generating more value than is taken away, applied to living.
Quality that stays in the neighbourhood
A well-designed house also benefits those who do not live in it: it raises the quality of the street, lasts over time, ages with dignity. It is an investment that goes beyond the individual home and stays in the neighbourhood for decades. This is the meaning of our Ethical Operations: building residential by turning the place into an ecosystem, with the quality of living at the centre.
In one line
Designing residential means starting from the neighbourhood before the house, caring for the shared spaces that build community and giving back to the place more than is taken from it. It is living conceived as part of an ecosystem. This is what we mean when we say your space our project.