Qasbaum originates from two well-known concepts.
The first one is the “Qasbah” (or Kasbah), the typical tower house in Arabic countries that identifies those urban aggregates characterised by inner courts, narrow streets and substantially blind façades toward the external side. These mentioned Kasbah’s features are part of a strategic defensive approach in an area in which the main enemies are warm weather and solar radiation.
The result is a sort of introvert building, opened toward its inner part, an almost secret space. We find similar schemes in China and, closer to us, in the ancient roman domus. All these schemes have in common both a certain kind of comfort (due to the lack of facilities and glass) and a feeling of security: I physically protect my family and myself against warm, cold, rain, wind and, at the same time, against others human threats. Moreover, such a schema not only provides security and comfort, but also a sharp sense of privacy. Significantly, in ancient Rome, only popular homes had windows facing the streets because comfort, security and privacy were second to other needs, due to the urban spaces’ high density.
The second concept that inspired Qasbaum lies in a building system that in Western society has often been a theme for design competitions: the design of transportable modules to realize high quality living spaces quickly and cost efficiently. It’s the realm in which industrial design meets architecture, the dream of a total control (space, time, cost) in building.
Such a building technique is a well-known practice in Northern America (see the video >>). To say it all, houses’ transportability seems not be a problem for US builders, who are able to move an entire building on a highway from town to town. But this is not the matter. We need also to specify that the challenge is not to build as fast as possible: few videos show how a 30 storeys building was realized in two weeks in China (see the video >>). On the contrary, the living modules focus on space efficiency while the building speed efficiency is almost a secondary effect.
Carlo Bughi | Architect 