A home, a cave, a mythic place that suddenly turns to reality: this is Casa CP, Buenos Aires, designed after the renowned Fortress of Solitude, the occasional headquarters for Superman in DC Comics. Signed by Estudio Normal, Casa CP was meant to be an addition to a home that the client shares with his children, an independent and private area for retreat and relaxation. The original space was an industrial warehouse with a loft that was to be turned into the new area. The design is based on the library as sole structuring system: the project is partly inspired by the old typology of libraries, the entire rooms that used to house the expansive intellectual universes of their owners.

The initially empty grid served as the basis for the project, the element that divided it into four diaphanous spaces with scarce programmatic determination. The project focused on how to develop the limits of the spaces, attempting to shape the emptiness with a specific entity. This led to experimenting with natural materials like Paulownia wood and with crafted languages like French caning to generate soft textures and surfaces that offset the rigid aesthetic of the concrete. The final result is a spatial oxymoron, a permeable cave informed by the influences of the library as system constructed to transform the one who inhabits it.

INFO: normal.com.ar

PHOTO COURTESY: Javier Agustín Rojas