This villa called ‘8 Towers’ designed by Single Speed Design is located in plot #92 of the Ordos 100 project. SsD was included in a global selection of 100 architects curated by Ai WeiWei and Herzog and deMeuron. The abstraction of the desert site is taken as an opportunity to develop new prototypical relationships between program and efficient energy use.

From the architects:

‘Early on we noticed that that the overall project site plan is a cleverly devised urban scale display system for a hundred different architectural experiments. Instead of deploying traditional property lines where no audience can tread, pedestrian easements relentlessly surround every lot. Within the abstraction of the desert, each team is liberated: without formal guilt we are given license to create autonomous product-like villas that can be viewed on all sides by an equally abstract audience.

From this cue, we took the opportunity to create a solution that on one hand references the local environment but also offers a more prototypical attitude toward energy savings – a solution that might be adapted to other building types beyond housing.

Eight towers are proposed, each containing a separate and distinct program: an entry tower, a living tower, a food tower, a gym tower, 2 bedroom towers, and 2 bathroom towers.

Through the distortion of each tower’s geometry, the volumes join or separate creating strategic connections and segregations so that only occupied portions of the building need to consume energy. The organization also creates experiential differences between rooms that are necessarily similar in size, while creating a high level of both porosity and privacy. Finally, the strategy heightens the identity and iconography of each program promoting an intensity of accidental or intentional relationships between differing activities.

Different zones of the home are used at different times of day. Dynamically adapting building systems to these patterns of use allows for greater energy-efficiency.

The organizational system also heightens the experiential differences between rooms that are necessarily similar in size, while creating a high level of porosity between interior and exterior spaces.

Separating the program into separate towers forms new spatial relationships while maximizing light and air to all rooms.

The towers rise out of the desert – clay pots are integrated into the landscape design to manage runoff during flash rain storms. Although the  towers are in dense proximity to form an advantageous microclimate, the angled walls allow clear views to the sky.’

For further information about this project visit: www.ssdarchitecture.com.