Many Small Cubes is part of the Small Nomad House Series, an initiative of Philippe Gravier Gallery (Paris). These self standing houses, with an area not larger than thirty-five square meters, should be easily dismantled and transportable. In between Architecture and Art, they should offer an experimental way of living, in an intimate relationship with the architect’s vision. The first project of this series, Many Small Cubes, by Sou Fujimoto Architects, was presented in the Tuileries Garden, for the Fiac 2014 in Paris.
According to the architect: “The floating masses of Many Small Cubes create a new experience of space, a rhythm of flickering shadows and lights, as if being under the trees. Hundreds of cubes attached one to another only by an edge or a corner, rise lightly from the ground, creating a very light and aerial architecture, with walls and roof being made of voids and masses. The space is organized around a central void hosting the living area; on ground floor, the kitchen elements and storage are incorporated into some of the 800 mm cubes and the bathroom is carefully protected by the cubes and the trees. The main entrances are located on two opposite sides and from everywhere if one doesn’t mind lowering the head. The base, following the same grid, is reasonably extending outside the footprint, enhancing the blurriness of the limit between outside and inside. The space itself is not strictly defined, offering many different areas, more or less sheltered, more or less protected from the sun or the wind. The cubes are considered as single entities and are all part of the structure acting as support and counterweight. Some of them serve as tree-pots, introducing greenery into this metallic composition from bottom to the top. The architecture forms one unified element whose balance and stability are carefully designed: the position of each cube and each tree participates to the overall stability, yet reaching a random-like feeling, bringing the whole architecture closer to nature”.
Iwan Baan, Simone Bossi, Marc Domage