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Ladder house inspired by Adolf Loos

The Ladder House is an ingenious spiral wooden tiered “piece of furniture” that allows it to continually change and evolve.

The “ladder house” is located in the small town of Almelo, the Netherlands, on the edge of a new urban development area. Not only does it allow you to live right next to your garden, but it also literally makes the idea of ​​”living at a high level” spatially materialize. This last characteristic was one of the requirements of its owners.

Following this concept, Onix designed a house, which offers possibilities of a multi-level life through different layers from the ground, ending in a roof terrace.

Each level of the house was arranged in a rotating manner with respect to its central axis and is only 75 cm above the previous level, giving the space a character of continuity. In addition, as these height differences are small, it was not necessary to use handrails for the safety of its inhabitants.

The house incorporates 10 levels from the ground to the roof, and as almost the entire house is made of wood, this will allow for the construction of new levels in the future. Additionally, the wood allows that both inside and outside, the limits between the complex volumetry of connections between stairs, floors, walls, ceilings and cabinets are lost. This turns the house into a gigantic integral piece of furniture to which elements can be added or removed as required.

With its 7 x 9 m area, the house also extends to a gross area of ​​10 x 10 m, thus integrating the semi-exterior structures into the interior enclosures.

The design is an evocation of the ‘Raumplan’ or spatial plan, the stepped house by Adolf Loos, which has the different rooms distributed at different heights according to their function. Loos poses it as an evolution towards the third dimension, with a free conception of space. The Casa Escalera makes the ornaments, the structure, the furniture and the stairs become an architectural continuity

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