The Cave House

                                                                                   The Cave House, Brasilia ( www.domo.arq.br )

“Suspended walkways lead to the house making space for the native “coruja buraqueira” (hole-living owls) and small lizards to live beneath it. A colourful field of photovoltaic sunflowers in the island can be seen from the distance, containing micro-mirrors embedded into its core, almost invisible to the bare eye because of their miniaturisation, thanks to nanotechnology development. They are the main source of solar energy of the house.”

No, this is not from an unknown story by British writer Ballard but a design description of a Cave House by Brasilia based architect Matheus Seco and his office called Domo Arquitetos. Developed for the open competition “Luxury for All” the project explores “a way how luxury could be understood considering richness of sensorial experiences and sustainable integration with nature which would eventually make it possible to be achieved by all.”

                                                          Perspective View of The Cave House, Brasilia

Derived from a thought provoking brief the proposal addresses an interesting point: the connection of welfare and abundance via machinery and technology as a paramount part of architectural innovation. Based in Brasilia – with its master plan relying heavily on a mechanised organisation of the city’s functions from living zones to network infrastructures – the Cave House sparks ideas of an intricate and choreographed environment while permitting nature, or at least part of it, to flow in and under. Immediately it sprawls to one’s mind how Brasilia owns ideological cradle is based on high specialised parts in a holistic system. Fortunately the analogy takes this work to a more interesting dimension. It allows allusion to a prolific sensorial reference, to the birth of sheltered man. Like the über sculpted Lapinha Cave in Belo Horizonte for example, Brazil makes one wonder of its primal inhabitant’s sensorial luxury enjoying a roasted game alongside their magical fire and their high-tech spears. But could sensorial luxury benefit contemporary creative minds? 

                                                     Gruta Lapinha ( www.lagoasanta.com.br/gruta/index.htm )

Soon we would start seeing unusual fauna neighboring mass produced plastic cupboards in flats along the Paranoa Lake, sediments of annual recycled rubbish layering an extension at a suburbia house and everything else that fits the “jeitinho brasileiro” (DIY Brazilian style) and its delirium imagination. In other words maybe sensory richness has little to do with technological luxury but rather with surprising our own body sensors with unusual doses or types of stimulus, something difficult indeed in a society pleased with the aspiration to standardisation and security. Could the cave be the future?