Spring 2022 | ARCH 206 - Architecture Design II | Professor Andrew Tripp | Illustrator, Photoshop, Physical Model
Team: Carley Allen, Kendall Calvery
Villa Steiner is a house designed by Adolf Loos in 1910 in Vienna, Austria. This house is a very clear example of Loos’s Raumplan - his way of designing not by plan, but by spaces, each with it’s own function and height. The basement and second floor contain functional, utility spaces. The mezzanine is a public, social level, and the first floor contains the private bedrooms. The large, open space on the mezzanine level is very characteristic of Loos, containing the living and dining rooms - the most public of all the spaces. The long, horizontal hallway serves as an axis that translates through all levels of the house. There are three staircases. A small staircase on the second floor leads to the roof. The spiral staircase travels between all four levels of the house. It serves a more utility purpose and is hidden away. The L-shaped staircase serves as the main circulation between the public and private levels.
In order to study the form more clearly, the levels were broken down into the more prominent units. The walls and stairs were represented transparently, almost to take an x-ray of the house. Breaking apart the spaces in this way allowed us to play with the form and focus on specific areas at a time.
Loos has created a very intricate house, not in it’s ornamentation, but in its form and functionality. This study brought to light the intentionality behind his organization, circulation methods, and leveling and height differences.
