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Architects: Ludwig Godefroy Architecture
- Area: 250 m²
- Year: 2024
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Photographs:Nicolas Rangel Ronquillo
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Lead Architects: Ludwig Godefroy
Text description provided by the architects. Casa Soskil is a house conceived from its negative space. Let me explain. This project, instead of being designed around the built, habitable spaces—the positive space that houses the home—was conceived in reverse, starting from the void that defines its garden. This empty garden space is the fundamental element that protects the house and all its interior spaces.
The project's starting point was to control the views from the neighbors by creating floating geometric shapes around the pre-existing trees on the site. These shapes create large openings where the garden can freely grow, meanwhile blocking intrusive views. These large voids not only regulate the neighbors' presence but also create a strong sense of interiority outside the garden. A feeling of well-being envelops every space of the house to make people feel they live among the trees.
Casa Soskil structures the negative space of its void, the garden is no longer the leftover space we didn't build; but the other way around, the void controls the built area of the house. The project also considers another important characteristic of the site: the land naturally has two poles—one of light and one of shade. At the front, direct sunlight shines intensely, while at the back, the tree's foliage filters the light and provides shade. Two complementary atmospheres exist on the site.
Casa Soskil embraces and makes this natural contrast its own, creating at the front a sunlit social space around the swimming pool, contrasted by a shaded social space at the back. The project turns the site's inherent qualities into different architectural atmospheres, everywhere inside of the house.
Casa Soskil deconstructs and fragments its interior space, creating a first social pole of light and gathering at the front, and a second social pole of shade and relaxation at the back. These two poles are connected through a walk in the garden—the green lung of the house.
The social pole of light is the active hub of the house, including a terrace/solarium and a swimming pool, while the social pole of shade is the meditative space, featuring a study, a daybed room for napping, and a fire pit. By responding to the site's natural conditions in this way, the conventional layout of living space was dismantled. The entire ground floor, its garden, and each of its trees—stretching from the entrance door to the back wall—became one large open living area. Meanwhile, the bedrooms are inserted like treehouses among the site's existing trees.
There is no longer a border between indoors and outdoors. The garden becomes the living room in its entirety. Casa Soskil reverses the traditional house with its garden, to create a garden with its house.
