House of Compression

The first semester of my architectural studies was focused on the influence of painting. As I began designing my first house, I took inspiration from the surrealism painting “The Annunciation” by René Magritte. Since a surrealism painting abstracts reality, the objects within the image could be anything in the viewer’s imagination. My main focus was driven to the center of the painting where “man made” objects were compressed. Once I had these cylindrical objects compressed, I enlarged some areas and minimized others as I cut the main object into a cube like shape. By doing this, it revealed really interesting spaces. The section shows how the different elements connect and how these interacting spaces can become habitable. They also show how an inhabitant could circulate throughout the space.