• • 19 November 2017
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  •  Datum Editorial
• Residential , African Modernity , Africana , African Modernism , Contemporary African Directory , Modern Africana , Housing , Houses , Low Cost Housing ,

The Angolan urban patios explore the home as a city and the city as a home. Architecture and a city are different manifestations of the same theme. The city isn’t simply the reunion of buildings or houses; it is a big and complex building.

It is important to define an urban spread that may adapt to different stages of growth and to different types of people. Also it is important to find an urban plan where exterior spaces communicate with their habitants and work as an extension of the private space. 

A home is a place of light and shadow; of silence and noise; of relations and autonomy between collective and individual.
An architecture that when lived-in, has the capability of generating the curiosity that leads to the discovery of a series of intimate and unexpected places. A place that withholds the brightness of the blue sky as well as the silent intimacy of the private space.

The house is defined by six patios that relate to the different functions of a home: kitchen and living-room, bedrooms and restroom. These six patios communicate through a central exterior corridor, protected from the rain. The result of our research defines a house where the interior has a permanent relation with the exterior. An intimate and protected exterior, where each family member may have privacy and autonomy.
We want the wealth and diversity of our proposal to rest on the wealth of the typology, space and light, more than on wealth or diversity of materials. For this reason we have chosen one single material for the construction of the house: rammed earth. This is a low-cost, easy to build material, that when associated to architectural decisions that guarantee good transversal ventilation systems and a good solar protection, may have a high thermal capacity.

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