In June 2013, the Vitra Campus was replenished with a new architectural object. On the hill between VitraHaus and the Buckminster-Fuller Dome, Italian architect Renzo Piano and his bureau Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW) created the Diogenes building, which is currently the smallest building on campus, but perhaps the most important …
Creation of "Diogenes"
Architect Renzo Piano in an interview says that he had been hatching the idea of a minimalist building since his student days. For him, it's like a kind of obsession - in a good sense of the word. Living space measuring 2x2 meters - just enough space for one bed, a chair and a small table - is what many architecture students dream of. At that time, Renzo Piano did not yet have the opportunity to bring this idea to life. But in the late 1960s, while teaching at the Architectural Association in London, he joined forces with his students to build mini-format houses in London's Bedford Square. In addition, he designed ships, cars and, several years ago, the cells of the Clarissin nuns in Ronshan. The goal of this project was also to minimize the space in which the nuns live, but not for the sake of economic profitability, but as a rejection of excesses. The minimalist house is a concept that never ceases to fascinate Piano. Especially now, when his company is working on large projects, such as the tallest building in Europe at the time of its completion in 2012 - the skyscraper “The Shard” in London.
About 10 years ago, of his own free will and without having a specific customer, Renzo Piano began to design a minimalist house. In Genoa, many layouts were developed - from plywood, concrete, and finally, on a wooden base. The final version of the project, which Piano gave the name "Diogenes", was published in autumn 2009 in the monographic booklet "Being Renzo Piano" published by the Italian magazine Abitare: a wooden house with a gable roof with a total area of 2.4x2.4 meters, 2, 3 meters and weighing 1.2 tons. So, Piano presented his vision to the public, but in the comments noted that in order to continue working on "Diogenes" he needs a customer.
The Italian architect's partner is Rolf Felbaum, chairman of the board of directors of Vitra AG. Felbaum read that issue of Abitare and immediately became interested in the ideas of Renzo Piano: Vitra does not consider itself a manufacturer of individual design items, but considers furniture as an important part of the human environment. Turning to the history of furniture design, we will see that the main goal of design has always been to rethink the living space of a person; the residential landscapes of the 1960s and 70s exemplify this.
At the end of June 2010, Renzo Piano and Rolf Felbaum met - both were then members of the Pritzker Prize jury, and it was decided to continue working together on the Diogenes project. After three years of design, the new model of Diogenes is now being presented to the public on the Vitra campus on the lawn opposite VitraHaus; the presentation is timed to coincide with the opening of the art exhibition Art Basel 2013. This is not a finished project, but an experimental composition that allows Vitra to explore the potential of a minimalist home. In this sense, Vitra is a pioneer: while usually the public is only presented with products already ready for serial production, this time, due to the complexity of the project, it was decided to allow the public to take part in the testing of Diogenes. The question of the further development of this project and whether it will go into mass production will be decided later.
Minimalist home idea
A simple house inscribed in the landscape, the prototype of ancient houses, which, based on the ancient ideas of the architectural theorist Vitruvius, is at the origins of technology and architecture, aroused a new wave of interest in the 18th century. This is evidenced by a copper engraving depicting the original hut of Vitruvius, included in the second edition of "Essay on Architecture" by Marc-Antoine Laugier in 1755. Since then, the idea of a minimalist house has occupied the minds of architects again and again. Sometimes the emphasis was on formalities, and sometimes on social circumstances, such as the “living wage apartment,” which became the subject of discussion in the 1920s and 1930s. In the 1960s, under the banner of architectural structuralism, minimalist cells were combined into blocks. More recently, the topic of discussion has been mobile residential buildings that could be used during natural disasters or in regions destroyed by war.
Diogenes is not an emergency shelter, but a conscious retreat. It is assumed that, being a self-sufficient, autonomous system, "Diogenes" is able to fulfill its purpose in any climatic conditions and regardless of the existing infrastructure. The necessary supply of water is collected by the house itself, cleaned and reused. The house supplies itself with energy using the minimum amount of necessary installations.
We live in an age when the need to rationally treat natural resources, thinking about the fate of future generations, forces us to minimize the "ecological footprint" we leave behind. This postulate is coupled with the need to "concentrate" the immediate living environment to the most essential items.
Diogenes may make some of us think of Henry David Thoreau, who wrote in his book Walden, or Life in the Woods in 1854: “I went into the woods because I wanted to live reasonably, to deal only with the most important facts of life and try to learn something from her. " There is no coincidence that Piano also considers his project "romantic enough" and emphasizes the "spiritual silence" he conveys: "Diogenes gives you what you really need and nothing more."
As architectural references, Renzo Piano names "Cabanon", a hut built by Le Corbusier in the early 1950s in Cap Martin on the Côte d'Azur, to Charlotte Perrian's prefabricated housing buildings and the "Nakagin Capsule Tower" erected by Kisho Kurokawa in Tokyo in 1972 year. Late 1960s - early 1970s were the formative years for Piano: in his interview, he mentions Cedric Price with his "Entertainment Palace" and the hippie movement as having a particularly important influence on him during that era.
"Diogenes" and its structure
"Diogenes", named after the ancient philosopher Diogenes of Sinop, who, according to legend, lived in a barrel because he considered worldly goods to be excesses, is a minimalist dwelling that exists autonomously, as an absolutely self-sufficient system, and independent of the environment. Fully assembled and furnished, it occupies an area of 2.5x3 meters, so it can be loaded into a truck and moved from place to place. Although the appearance of "Diogenes" resembles a simple house, in fact it is an extremely complex complex from a technical point of view, equipped with all kinds of installations and technical systems that ensure its autonomy and independence from local infrastructure: photovoltaic cells and solar modules, rainwater storage, dry closet, natural ventilation, triple glazing. Renzo Piano works with Mattias Schuler of the renowned Transsolar company to find the optimal energy solution for the home, while Maurizio Milan is responsible for static balance. "Diogenes" is equipped with everything that is necessary for life.
The front part serves as a living room: on one side there is a pull-out sofa, on the other a folding table by the window. Behind the partition there is a shower, a toilet and a kitchen, in which only the essentials are left. The house and furnishings form a single whole. Everything is made of wood, which gives the interior its soft character. To protect it from the weather, the outside of the house is clad with aluminum panels.
The overall shape and gable roof resembles the archetypal image of the house, but the rounded corners and solid facade cladding give the impression of a modern object. This is not an ordinary small house, but a technically perfect and aesthetically pleasing retreat. The main difficulty lies in the fact that this difficult development would be suitable for serial industrial production. “This little house is the culmination of a very long journey we have embarked on, driven partly by our aspirations and dreams, but also by technical and scientific principles,” explains Renzo Piano.
"Diogenes" has many applications: it can serve as a small country house, and a personal or office cabinet. It can be located right in nature, but also next to the place of work, or even - in a simplified form - in the middle of the free office space of a free plan. On the other hand, it is also possible to build several groups of such houses and use them, for example, as an informal hotel or guest house. Diogenes is so small that it is an ideal retreat, but intentionally does not provide all the needs to the same extent. Communication, for example, has to take place elsewhere - so Diogenes also invites you to rethink the relationship that exists between the individual and society.
The author of the text, Hubertus Adam - Director of the Swiss Museum of Architecture (S AM) in Basel, art and architecture historian, architecture critic.
Materials provided by Vitra.
