The Truffle / Ensamble Estudio

Apr 2010

Uploaded by Nico Saieh — Filed under: Featured ,Houses ,Selected , Antón García-Abril, Concrete, Ensamble Studio, Spain

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Architects: Ensamble Estudio / Antón García-Abril
Location: Costa da Morte, Spain
Collaborator: Ricardo Sanz
Quantity Surveyor: Javier Cuesta
Collaborator Companies: Tongadas & Zuncho Dolorido, SL. / Galicorte / Macías Derribos / Suministros Zurich / Ganadería Paulina
Project Area: 25 sqm
Project Year: 2006-2010
Photographs: Roland Halbe & Ensamble Estudio

The Truffle is a piece of nature built with earth, full of air. A space within a stone that sits on the ground and blends with the territory. It camouflages, by emulating the processes of mineral formation in its structure, and integrates with the natural environment, complying with its laws.

We made a hole in the ground, piling up on its perimeter the topsoil removed, and we obtained a retaining dike without mechanical consistency. Then, we materialized the air building a volume with hay bales and flooded the space between the earth and the built air to solidify it. The poured mass concrete wrapped the air and protected itself with the ground. Time passed and we removed the earth discovering an amorphous mass.

The earth and the concrete exchanged their properties. The land provided the concrete with its texture and color, its form and its essence, and concrete gave the earth its strength and internal structure. But what we had created was not yet architecture, we had fabricated a stone.

We made a few cuts using quarry machinery to explore its core and discovered its mass inside built with hay, now compressed by the hydrostatic pressure exerted by concrete on the flimsy vegetable structure. To empty the interior, the calf Paulina arrived, and enjoyed the 50m3 of the nicest food, from which she nourished for a year until she left her habitat, already as an adult and weighing 300 kilos. She had eaten the interior volume, and space appeared for the first time, restoring the architectural condition of the truffle after having been a shelter for the animal and the vegetable mass for a long time.

The architecture surprised us. Its ambiguity between the natural and the built, the complex materiality that the same constructive element, the mass unreinforced concrete, could provide the small architectural space, at different scales. From the amorphous texture of its exterior, to the violent incision of a cut that reveals its architectural vocation, leading to the fluid expression of the interior solidification of concrete. This dense materiality, which gives the vertical walls a rusticated scale, comes from the size of the bales, and contrasts with the continuous liquidity of the ceiling that evokes the sea, petrified in the lintel of the spatial frame that looks sublimely to the Atlantic Ocean, highlighting the horizon as the only tense line within the interior space.

To provide the space with all the comfort and the living conditions needed in architecture, we took the “Cabanon” of Le Corbusier as motif, recreating its program and dimensions. It is the “Cabanon of Beton” the reference that makes the truffle an enjoyable living space in nature, that has inspired and subdued us. And the lesson we learn is the uncertainty that led us in the desire to build with our own hands, a piece of nature, a contemplative space, a little poem.

: © Roland Halbe

: © Roland Halbe

: © Ensamble Estudio

: © Ensamble Estudio

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: © Ensamble Estudio

: © Ensamble Estudio

: © Ensamble Estudio

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: © Ensamble Estudio

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: © Ensamble Estudio

: © Ensamble Estudio

: © Ensamble Estudio

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: © Ensamble Estudio

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: floor plan sketch

: floor plan

: section 01

: section 02

: section 03

: section 04

Cite:
Saieh , Nico . "The Truffle / Ensamble Estudio" 26 Apr 2010. ArchDaily. Accessed 08 Feb 2012. <http://www.archdaily.com/57367>

Comments (47)
Tweets (17)
Links to this entry (23)

archdaily says:

what an incredible amount of free time

# April 26, 2010 at 15:23

kevin says:

whatttttttttttt

# April 27, 2010 at 13:50

moE says:

free time.. what??…it’s about having a passion for architecture

# April 27, 2010 at 14:01

Javier says:

Its really innovative… a first try, but I can imagine plenty of applications fot cheap housing…

# April 27, 2010 at 17:31

Benjamin says:

Something different.. nice result!

# April 26, 2010 at 16:30

lolcake says:

they spent five years to build a concrete room with textures of cow food. this is something new in nature.

# April 26, 2010 at 17:08

ящик says:

эт невероятно!идея шикарная!органическая архитектура…

# April 26, 2010 at 17:18

jerry says:

PROJECT OF THE YEAR!!!!! this is really something great. the allowance of the unknown is refreshing to see embraced instead of feared. really truly this is something to be proud of.

# April 26, 2010 at 18:05

joey says:

Casa da Música, but way better.

# April 26, 2010 at 18:14

lisa says:

remarkable…

# April 26, 2010 at 18:39

doug says:

Unremarkable…

# April 28, 2010 at 17:18

james says:

what a wonderflul little idea.
i esspecially love that they had a calf eat the interior volume over a 1 year period.

# April 26, 2010 at 19:01

rodolfo says:

exelente!!!

# April 26, 2010 at 19:06

PatrickLBC says:

Beautiful!

# April 26, 2010 at 19:09

E says:

funny and great building!

# April 26, 2010 at 19:42

josep says:

beautiful and poetic! what a way to end my night! Wonderful!

# April 26, 2010 at 21:04

RODRIGO says:

Earthworm Jim, Excellent!
Congrats!!!
from Chihuahua. Mx.

# April 26, 2010 at 21:59

gus bianchi says:

este experimento hace avanzar a la arquitectura. muy intersante el concepto y su aplicación.

# April 26, 2010 at 23:01

Jeff says:

# April 26, 2010 at 23:33

David Basulto says:

Once again Anton bring us innovation in building techniques.

Please, check other works by his firm here:

http://www.archdaily.com/16598/hemeroscopium-house-ensamble-studio/

http://www.archdaily.com/21496/musical-studies-centre-ensamble-studio/

# April 26, 2010 at 23:48

bella says:

i love it, really an awesome piece

# April 27, 2010 at 00:24

shetu says:

the most striking point about this project is its construction technique, no doubt. specially feeding up a calf the whole interior volume for over a year is quite innovative. my question is why did you depend upon a calf to do that for a long span of time. Its not like that you gave the animal total freedom of creating the shape of the void inside. you already know how the shape is going to be at the end. then why did you depend on her only to remove the hays whereas you used bulldozer, concrete mixer in the same project?

# April 27, 2010 at 01:06

fakecalf says:

In order for that statement to be true then they used two different calves for the photo shoot – in one year the animal would have been much much bigger. obviously a fake

# April 27, 2010 at 10:20

nathan says:

who cares anyway? the project is fun smart and classic… the least of my concern is the cow photo shoot. plus, yeah if the client had a year to waste/wait, let the cow hang out… plus i’m guessing nobody knew if the structure would hold… so let it sit for a year see if it does if so finish it out. great project again.

# April 27, 2010 at 11:20

GBA says:

fantastic!
how does it work structurally once the support (hay) is gone?
Is there any steel in it?

# April 27, 2010 at 03:46

It doesn´t need almost any steel because with this little span, and such a thick roof, the concrete can work as if it was a dome, the loads following an arch-shape path to the walls, so almost everything is sxial forces and shear, no bending, so not steel needed.

# April 27, 2010 at 17:35

sam says:

Fun and poetic. Though the sheer tonnage of concrete per m2 of floor space seems awfully wasteful given its high embodied energy. It’s really neat, I just wish it could have been done in a slightly more responsible way…

# April 27, 2010 at 03:58

robert says:

love the idea and the interior space but IMO they should have let this structure covered with earth and grass with space only for acces and window.

# April 27, 2010 at 04:17

up_today_arch says:

A lot, a lot, a lot of strange peoples in the world… But… it pushes the progress and gives us a lot of new ideas… It is terrific example of new ways of architecture…

# April 27, 2010 at 06:29

sergio says:

Me parece genial. Gracias Antón por este soplo de aire fresco.

# April 27, 2010 at 11:32

pathos says:

This is not a new technique. Arcosanti employed similar techniques to build their domes: http://www.arcosanti.org/expCosanti/architecture/main.html. This is an interesting project however and in my opinion they achieved their stated goal which was to build a little poem with their own hands.

# April 27, 2010 at 17:01

Nicholas Patten says:

I'd Live Here: The Truffle. http://bit.ly/bAJXjO

# April 27, 2010 at 18:31

that's what she says:

excuse me…please learn!…we need more ideas and techniques like these. love it!

# April 27, 2010 at 19:23

nick says:

Absolute heroes!

# April 27, 2010 at 20:51

biboarchitect says:

toilet?

# April 28, 2010 at 03:17

Ariel says:

Innovation, but its still not cheap, there’s a lot of money that the threw away, in concrete. and cutting it to

# April 28, 2010 at 11:25

m. says:

This is really SOMETHING.
You can search for arguments against but you can’t doubt this amazing way of thinking about architecture.

# April 28, 2010 at 18:23

Francisco says:

Extraordinary critique to the Retardquitecture -i.e. new zaha hadid buildings- where still using the same building methods and all their output is product design that looks amazing in the renders but the reality is: POCHE

The community of Architecture is doing well recognizing Antón´s work. No doubt this Spanish young Architect will find his spot in the international discourse.

Bravo maestro!

# April 29, 2010 at 22:04

ik says:

bingo!

# May 2, 2010 at 20:45

Jaeseok says:

wow! amazing! I want to learn.

# May 3, 2010 at 01:50

very interesting!!

# May 3, 2010 at 01:54

linas says:

That is incredible, it’s unbelievable! Guys, you are so far ahead (with your thinking) and you are so free! Good luck to all of you – keep going!

# May 4, 2010 at 04:24

windzerg says:

Awesome work! I like what the inside looks. Really a poetry.

# May 4, 2010 at 08:12

gravityjungle says:

Love this free spirited space sculpturing project. The result, a true personal shelter is touching.

# May 4, 2010 at 13:38

archit student says:

what about services and maintenance?

# May 25, 2010 at 06:07

Polina says:

I’ve browsed and browsed on archdaily and never really looked into this project due to its’ unappealing first picture, but than… I have to admit this is history in the making. Exceptional concept and execution. We just have to watch and learn from such projects. Truly impressive!

# July 29, 2010 at 03:37

Spacer Nix says: