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Softie

OPA

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Joe Fletcher
Joe Fletcher
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Comments
Innovation
Functionality
Creativity
Eco-Social Impact
Total
JURY VOTES
House
7.51
6.26
7.56
5.29
6.66
Deepak Jawahar
Deepak Jawahar Cofounder at The Architecture Story
8.2
6.5
7.8
5.6
7.03
Nicolas Delefosse
Nicolas Delefosse Founder and Creative Director at NDDO
8
7
8
5
7
Giovanni Zaccariello
Giovanni Zaccariello SVP Global Visual Experience  at Coach
8
7
9
7
7.75
Dennis Vlietinck
Dennis Vlietinck Head of Design at Wink
7.5
7
8
5.5
7
Gilbert Khalil
Gilbert Khalil Director of Design and Technical Services at Sunset Hospitality Group
8
6
7
5
6.5
Jocelyne Sacre
Jocelyne Sacre Design Strategist at Consultant
7
6
7
5
6.25
Anne-Rachel Schiffmann
Anne-Rachel Schiffmann Director of Interior Architecture at Snøhetta
7
7
7
6
6.75
Lucy Bagshaw
Lucy Bagshaw Project Director at Tp Bennett
8
5
7
4
6
Farid Ziani
Farid Ziani Partner Architect Designer at KTX archiLAB
7.5
6.5
8
5
6.75
Asif Din
Asif Din Sustainability Director at Perkins&Will
8
6
8
4
6.5
Cathy Figueiredo
Cathy Figueiredo Cofounder at Wanna
8
5
7.5
5
6.38
Liqun Lin
Liqun Lin Executive Director at Xiamen Wenqu Decoration Design
8.5
6
7
6
6.88
Sontaya Bluangtook
Sontaya Bluangtook Associate Design Director at UNStudio
7.5
6
8
6
6.88
Lisa Adams
Lisa Adams Director of CitizenHKS & Sustainable Design Leader at HKS
6.5
5
7
4
5.63
Klein Dai
Klein Dai CEO at Algebraist Brand Management
8
6
7
5
6.5
Baoyu Tian
Baoyu Tian General Manager at Foshan Shengtianjia Lighting Equipment
7.5
6.5
7.5
6
6.88
Bangsheng Yang
Bangsheng Yang Founder at Yang & Associates Group
7
6.5
7.25
5.5
6.56
Woody Yao
Woody Yao Director at Zaha Hadid Design
7.5
7
7.5
6
7
Dirk Osinga
Dirk Osinga Founder at STUDIOSINGA
Clouds as a concept. But why does e...
5
7
8
5
6.25
Designer
Client
Gary Ng
Floor area
140 ㎡
Completion
2022
Budget
witheld
Social Media
Instagram
Finishes

Why can’t architecture be more like nature—changeable, varied, and uninhibited? Our client wanted to return home and feel a sense of private freedom, a release from the conformity of the world outside. In this project, we softened her existing Modernist house by infusing it with an atmosphere of clouds. The clouds scatter freely throughout the house, and dissolve and soften it in different ways. The clouds erode and blur the order of the rational modernist grid, creating a sense of space that floats and drifts.

Moments of softness are encountered unexpectedly—the interventions are like a mist that has settled unevenly. The softness dissolves the entry, melts the stairs, wafts through the house on all three floors, and a lonely cloud is trapped above a sheltered terrace.

The organic, amorphous forms were all computer designed and robotically fabricated. The specific materials include aluminum plate, high-density foam, concrete, MDO and plywood. Each of these scopes began with in-house discussions and soft pencil sketches of the effects we were after. To achieve these effects, we kept trying out different digital tools and fabrication techniques until we found a good fit. This project is more sculptural than algorithmic, so we tended to use digital tools which simulate traditional sculpting techniques rather than being data driven. We wanted to retain the possibility for intuition and contingency at every step of the design process