No Comments »

A Building to Represent the Idea of Infinity

• Tweet

• Tweet

Atelier d’Architecture Bruno Erpicum & Partners have named this house in Baleares, Spain “Infinity.” It’s an intriguing and ambitious architectural idea.

The site is small and the architects employ a strange triangular shape for the house, while a long lap pool occupies its outer edge.

At the end of the pool, a pool house offers a sheltered spot for bathers with the theatrical classicism of a Greek amphitheater.

A crisp white set of loungers pose under an implausible styrofoam sunshade in a medley of blues stretching to the infinite horizon.

“Space and time are two infinite things that pass us by,” say the architects.

“Architecture, however, enables us to model space and set time, like a sundial.”

Most of the house is housed in a triangle of a glass box propped against a giant containment wall of stucco.

Inside, a triangular open-plan living room conveys the sense of the infinite skies – like looking out of an airport.

Long tall and narrow apertures emphasise the nature of entry and staircase in the double height living room, while the slimmest of skylights continues the theme.

By contrast with the soaring public space, the kitchen is low ceilinged, an intimate space.

“The trick is to release all the emotions of the place,” say the architects. “Opening or splitting, reflecting infinity.”

As if to stop time, a growing tree is framed against the blank canvas of a stucco wall.

Like all living things, the tree has a finite lifespan.

This lone scraggy tree from the arid region is given a heroes welcome within the blank courtyard framing, as if to represent our finite lives within infinity.