Textual content description offered by the architects. Falcon Home is located on an island with out electrical energy or operating water. The undertaking by PAT. architetti associati in collaboration with Ferdinando Fagnola for this residence on Manda Island, overlooking the traditional metropolis of Lamu in Kenya, is ingeniously designed to harness the forces of nature and adapt to its circumstances. The architectural format of the home consists of separate, raised rooms, permitting the prevailing winds (the Kaskazi, blowing from the northeast between December and March, and the Kusi, blowing from the south between April and September) to naturally cool the rooms, eliminating the necessity for air con. Electrical energy, generated by means of photovoltaic panels, powers a desalination system, changing seawater into potable water for home use. Rainwater collected in tanks additionally contributes to the water provide.
An meeting of pavilion-style constructions elevated from the bottom. The home presents itself as a scattered meeting of particular person pavilion-style constructions, every elevated to roughly three meters above the bottom on metal stilts, fastidiously positioned to harmonize with the present acacia and baobab bushes. In crafting this suspended panorama, PAT. and Ferdinando Fagnola initially explored a wood structural framework. Nonetheless, in a subsequent part of collaboration with the proprietor, PAT. opted for a metal building system. This choice not solely emphasised the home’s distinctive design language but additionally ensured a cheaper building course of.
Recycled supplies, building strategies, and environmental high quality. Pre-existing bungalows have been disassembled with care, salvaging their wood planks. The pavilions and terraces, located at various elevations, are linked by a straight walkway. Service and served areas are distinctly separated, with bogs and wardrobes housed in turrets behind the rooms, linked by small bridges. The rooms, elevated to the extent of the tree canopies, are shielded by a flat concrete roof, insulated on the outer layer, supporting a ventilated roofing system product of corrugated corten metal, designed to maintain the rooms shaded all through the day. The ceilings and flooring are cast-in-place concrete, whereas the south wall is constructed from on-site prefabricated concrete blocks, created by native craftsmen utilizing customized wood formwork.
The shaded and ventilated concrete mass acts as a thermal flywheel, serving to regulate the room’s microclimate, with adjustable wood slats on the east and west partitions. 4 massive pivot doorways permit the north facade to open onto the sea-facing terraces. The adjustable louvers permit for the management of pure mild and air flow. This adaptable and operated by hand local weather management system, developed in shut collaboration with native artisans, was the results of varied mock-ups to reach on the chosen options.
Exterior decks and the toilet tower cladding characteristic reclaimed wooden from on-site constructions and domestically considerable, renewable eucalyptus wooden, avoiding the usage of over-exploited species like mangroves. Iroko wooden, identified for its sturdiness, was selectively used for sunshade fins to make sure the system’s longevity.
The unique home and the utility constructing. Falcon Home was constructed alongside the renovation and enlargement of the unique mid-Twentieth-century ‘white home’ within the Swahili model of Lamu. The white home seamlessly integrates into the pavilion system and gives sheltered residing areas on the bottom ground, together with a eating room with a big cast-in-place concrete desk, a cinema room, and a library. The utility constructing, an unbiased pavilion located behind the residence, was demolished and reconstructed on the identical website. It homes the kitchen and now incorporates the brand new technological core of the home, which features a photovoltaic rooftop, a battery storage room, a desalination system, and a water tower.
The consumer. Falcon Home is a particular presence on the island’s coast for varied causes, not restricted to its design. The consumer, an inheritor to a Milanese household deeply linked to town’s historical past and the Italian style business, is a passionate modern artwork fanatic who spent summers on the household home in Sardinia. Nonetheless, what really captured his creativeness have been different homes – these designed by Ferdinando Fagnola and Gianni Francione within the Nineteen Seventies, and just lately renovated by Fagnola in collaboration with PAT. These brutalist shells blended seamlessly with the coastal topography, nestling among the many vegetation and granite, disappearing completely from view from the ocean. Years later, when the consumer wished to assemble a home in Kenya, he felt a powerful want for a profound reference to the land, reimagined inside the equatorial setting. This led him to fee Ferdinando Fagnola himself and PAT. After a collaborative conceptual part, PAT. efficiently introduced the undertaking to completion, incorporating modern types and supplies that might seamlessly mix with the pure and cultural environment, avoiding any trace of exoticism or compelled traditionalism.
Using native information and experiences. Falcon Home was delivered to life by means of the collaboration of a community of native experience and experiences. The undertaking represents a mix of designers who’re delicate to cultural and environmental circumstances, seamlessly integrating quite a lot of sensibilities from each native and distant contexts. PAT. harnessed native sources and experience to develop sustainable options, addressing each modern facets and the preservation of custom.
This new undertaking by PAT. is completely off-the-grid, accessible solely by sea resulting from its isolation from any infrastructure, together with roads. The home represents a dedication to finish vitality and technical self-sufficiency. It attracts inspiration from the seashore homes designed by Craig Ellwood and Paul Rudolph, with a selected emphasis on analysis concerning steel-framed residential structure, microclimates, and pure air flow—analysis influenced by the work of Pierre Koenig, who has been an influential determine for Andrea Veglia since his early research in California. Falcon Home reinterprets precious insights from a typically forgotten modernity with which PAT. maintains an in depth dialogue.