Citta-montagna-casa

(Mountain-city-house)
Year 1967-72

The liberation of nature

First studies about amorphously formed buildings on the mountaintops. Later studies based on a terrace-structure with equivalent residental units. The roof of each unit works as park for the unit one level above. Beside a central collective kitchen on the highest point water reservoirs supply water collected from rain and – if high enough – glaciers.

The idea comes up to use large light-tubes (tubi luce) to ensure sufficient daylight inside the building complex. Now compaction is reached through geometrical structure of the ground plan. On a quadratic raster the circles in the center as the zylindric tubes. The points of intersection as square towers. So the height can be variable and allows the entire building complex to adapt better to the mountain-profile.

The quadratic raster with circles results in a honeycomb-like structure. It consists of an alternate arrangement of light-tubes and tubes as living units. The square towers on the intersection points function either as access area and private rooms (residental unit tube) or as community space and hanging gardens (light tube). Inside the cylindric residental units rotateable wings can form indivual wanted rooms.

The abstinence of fixed doors allows a “natural attitude” (like ants in their hill) and stands exemplary for the values of the society living in mountain-city.