The 23.2 House by Omer Arbel

Designed by Omer Arbel, 23.2 House is a home for a family built on a large rural area on the outskirts of Vancouver on the west coast of Canada. There is a gentle slope from east to west and two forest stands and which define two “outdoor rooms”, each with its own ecology and with different lighting conditions, the house is located at the point of maximum tension between these two environments and defines the two as distinct, and also offers a transition between them.

The design of the house itself began as a starting point, with a deposit of one hundred years old, made of fir beams reclaimed from a number of stores burned. The beams were of different lengths and cross sectional dimensions and proportions were amazing – some up to 20 meters and 90 centimeters tall. It was agreed that the beams were sacred objects in its current state and not manipulate them or kill them in any way.

Because the beams were of different lengths and sizes, the architect need to achieve a geometry that would be able to accommodate the huge variety in size, while allowing for the possibility of narrating spaces legible. Was installed in a triangular geometry.

Crossed triangular wooden frames made from reclaimed beams to create the roof would act as a second (and inhabited) landscape, bringing this artificial landscape on the gentle slope of the site. The folds were manipulated to create implicit and explicit relationships between indoor and outdoor space so that all interior rooms given to a corresponding outer room.

To maximize the ambiguity between interior and exterior space, removed the definition of an important corner of each room by pulling the support structure of the corner itself, using bent steel columns. Systems were also introduced the accordion in these corners open for the entire facade on both sides of each corner could retract and disappear completely.