the ramp house
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client: private

location: Athens-Greece

architectural design: archivirus

photographer: Athanasia Psaraki / theo vranas

date: 2007-2008

 

The ramp house is a project which tries to reconsider and redefine the living space. The client requested a “skatable habitat”. The result was a curved form interior, which set the whole house as well as the inhabitant’s life, into motion. The ‘skateboarding’ element is adopted in every possible way. When the client asked me to design a home where she could be able to skate, I immediately eliminated the idea of just putting a mini ramp in the living room. For me, the challenge of this project was to make a living space where the ramp, the bowl and all the interpretations of those terms would actually become the building elements for this space. I wanted to make a ‘ramp house’ and not a ‘house with a ramp’. So I started imagining a space where the straight line would become curved and the flat surface would become a ramp or a bowl. Playing with these forms and with the variable transitions which offer, my main goal was to create a functional open space where aspects of daily life would adopt ‘ the feeling of acceleration’ which is basically one of the main characteristics of skateboarding. In that way, the whole space is in actual motion and somebody can flow from one space to the other, skating or walking.