Pey Keyo-ixi – A house for no place
Personal Info
Name: Iroã Pinto
Nationality: Brazilian/Portuguese
Institution / Company: Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iroapinto/
Facebook: Iroã Pinto
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iroa-pinto-8537895b/
-HONOURABLE MENTION of Non Architecture Award Competition | Category: Aspatial
The Amazon Yanomami tribe’s Xapono has a simple and functional structure composed of several vertical elements and a roof. A simple plan solves its architecture. A ceiling/wall that provides shelter for their lives and rituals. Taking their architecture as inspiration, the concept of this “house for nowhere” consists of a single wall/ceiling plane of aligned tree trunks in a polycentric spiral line, built-in on a rammed earth pavement. This wall/ceiling plane revolves around itself creating a path. The trunks conceive a natural rhythm conditioned by their own materiality/technology, almost like the Yanomami shamanic performances and movements, resulting in a succession of interesting and mysterious interior spaces, sometimes narrow/low as a connecting corridor, sometimes wide/high reminiscing a cathedral, all connected into a path that ends in a central patio. The charring process, unfortunately so common in the Amazon Forest, contrasts with the light beams filtered by the structure, more closed in the outer perimeter, and spaced in the inner walls, inviting the light to cut the dark background, giving prominence to the subtle moon’s twilight mixed with the relaxing glow of a central fireplace.
This is a house for no place.
Therefore, it has all places. A house, a pavilion, a church, a shelter, a path to the interior of an architectural and sensorial space, but also to the interior of those who experience it. A house with no doors, but ways; no windows but openings/slits; no rooms but spaces; no compartments but a path. A burned path. A Pey Keyo-ixi.
Project Type: pavilion/gallery/church/shelter/installation/house
Jury Comments
– Hidden Architecture
The project reinterprets the Amazon Yanomami tribe’s Xapono social structure with vernacular structures that let us know more of its culture. The simplicity of the construction creates interesting enclosed and open spaces.
