Project Private House
Design Ateljé Sotamaa (Kivi Sotamaa, Tuuli Sotamaa, Filippo Fabi, Irene Pace)
Location Kontiolahti , Finland
Year 2019-2020
Photos Tukka Koski
Collaboration with the design office Atelje’ Sotamaa working at Concept Development, 2D/3D Design, Visualization (including VR Experience), Prototyping, Interior Design including custom and site-specific Products and Furniture.
The Meteorite is a three-story building designed for a visionary client and entirely build in cross-laminated timber. The building is a contemporary example of how digital design and fabrication techniques in combination with natural materials such as wood can open up new possibilities for architectural experience. The Meteorite has been digitally designed to be digitally fabricated: this made possible a flexible creation of a unique and exciting structure, which response to the client’s dreams. Its design is based on a contemporary organizational strategy, which has been nicknamed the “misfit”. In the misfit, there are two formal systems that generate an in-between space called the poche. The air in the poche acts as insulation for the building and in addition, it contains inbuilt storage as well as all technical systems, which can be easily accessed and maintained. Aesthetically the misfit strategy allows for the creation of a large scale monolithic form on the outside, which addresses the scale of the forest, and an intricate human-scale spatial arrangement on the interior.
The design of the building attempt to holistically address and rethink all of aspects of a wooden house; its aesthetics, atmosphere, social and political space, figure ground relationship, part to whole relationships, relationship to context, repetition and variation within a community, building physics, technical systems, manufacturing logistics, construction, circular economies, maintenance and life cycle management.