Villa Savoye; Le Corbusier

Villa Savoye; Le Corbusier

Villa Savoye by Le Corbusier was constructed in 1929 – 1931. The villa shows his famous five points of modern architecture, which are :

1. Supporting the structure by pilotis (reinforced concrete stilts)

By lifting the structure off the ground, it simply removed any obstructions from ground level.

2. A free façade (Non-load bearing walls)

The columns were placed in the house behind the façade so the facade was not supporting the building but only acted as the skin of the building.

3. Open plan interior

Reinforced concrete in the house provides a free plan so that the floor space could be arranged freely into rooms without having to consider the supporting wall.

4. Ribbon window

The horizontal stripe window maximized the capacity of light entered the building.

5. Roof garden

The flat roof gave an extra function as a rooftop garden to the building. The idea of having green space on top of the house was to substitute the loss in greenery on the ground that was covered by the building.

The five points I mentioned above served Le Corbusier’s thought of blending in the house into the nature around it.

Movement through space

The Le Corbusier designed Villa Savoye to have its own ability to direct visitors through the “restricted route” as to see the complete view of the location.

As you can see from the drawing above, the movement as you walk through the building will allow you to go through open and close spaces. The volume of space is constantly changing and it is in a way, giving you to choose the way of going up the second floor, either by spiral staircase or by long the ramp.

In project 2A, I am planning the reed bed-like system to purify water in the Fleet sewage before it goes out to the Thames at Blackfriars Bridge. The current position of my project is mainly dealing with the volume of the space and how elements travel through a space with a specific route.

Just like Villa Savoye, as you enter the main entrance, the road direct you to travel pass specific angles to view the surrounded scenery of the house and the way you walk into the house and up the floors was also specifically planned.

NJ::