Articles by Valentina Villa

When I first visited this site, the owner and I immediately had the idea for a building that seems to be emerging out of the landscape. The east end of the house is buried, while the two projecting west-facing wings have unobstructed 270-degree views of Bald Mountain, Griffin Butte, and Adams Gulch. The house takes advantage of all the site has to offer: sweeping landscape views, balanced with a sense of being underneath, within. I’m always trying to find the yin and yang of a place. Likewise, the two main sections have windows onto a central courtyard, and the pivot wall opens to face it as well. The idea was to create more intimate moments that would balance the big views.

This vital new work and research campus has quickly become a dynamic hub where government, business entrepreneurs, and community come together to forge creative new partnerships. The goal: to foster innovations that advance LA’s green economies within the framework of an unusual public-private coalition. The campus includes a transformed 61,000 SF warehouse in the vibrant Arts District. Offices, conference rooms, labs, prototyping workshops, and event space, in addition to facilities serving one of the City’s major public utility companies, exist alongside PV-shaded parking, greywater filtration, and a microgrid system.

This vital new work and research campus has quickly become a dynamic hub where government, business entrepreneurs, and community come together to forge creative new partnerships. The goal: to foster innovations that advance LA’s green economies within the framework of an unusual public-private coalition. The campus includes a transformed 61,000 SF warehouse in the vibrant Arts District. Offices, conference rooms, labs, prototyping workshops, and event space, in addition to facilities serving one of the City’s major public utility companies, exist alongside PV-shaded parking, greywater filtration, and a microgrid system.

Hidden in the mountains of Malpais, Cobano, is the soul-escape retreat that is Brisas del Cabo House. 

Hidden in the mountains of Malpais, Cobano, is the soul-escape retreat that is Brisas del Cabo House. 

The new Illa mountain hut is situated at 2.488 m height in the idyllic surroundings of the Andorran Pyrenees, a place of an extraordinary beauty resulting from the interaction between man and environment, which gave rise to the characteristic aspect of the existing construction built in the 30’s and whose comprehensive refurbishment and enlargement would be the objective of this project. 

The plot for the construction of a family house is situated on the slopes of Medvednica, in the northwestern part of the city. The terrain is an ideal south-facing slope.

Connecting the view of surrounding environment which includes far away mountains, lake, trees and all the elements in background to the form and elevation of the building was the significant challenge of this design.

They ask us to extend the house, to live intensely the garden and to dispose of the attainable landscape; Nothing that has not done almost all the neighbours from this cheap houses neighbourhood of the fifties. But in these popular refurbishments, self-construction and simplicity of resources have traditionally outweighed the order, the foresight, or the hand of an architect. We look at the project respecting the values of chance and its diversity of materials and solutions, but also being faithful to rationality; We read the place and propose two extensions and a reform.

According to the book RINO LEVI Architecture and City, Romano Guerra publisher, p.254: “Fourth project of the series of introspective houses, this residence develops the architectural design approach adopted in the church and chapel of São José dos Campos: a unique space, built of two side stripes with open gardens and a covered and protected central strip. The central space is the living and dining room, which extends through the side gardens protected by pergolas. The delimitation of this unique space is provided by the structure of the house: in the back, the bedrooms; on the right side, the kitchen, pantry and breakfast room; on the left side, the vestibule with toilet, acess to the underground cellar and a small room; in the front, the services and the garage, with the peculiar situation of the housekeeper dormitories, a white volume, raised and blinded for the street.”