Architectural Collectible: A Living Experience
von Anoe Melliou
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Conveying a set of values that defy quantification: the quality of a collectible is not defined by its final form. It is valued as an intentional act of communication, rather than a display of the present. The background, the process that is often unseen, is a carrier of values. Regardless of scale, the skilled honesty of a collectible is rare, and therefore, valuable.
These thoughts find an expression in the Solo Pezo von Ellrichshausen house, the first built project within the visionary Solo Houses development in Spain’s remote Matarraña region. The holiday house is a meditation on form and proportion, qualifying its concrete presence in nature. Rooted in the principles of symmetry and homothety, the house is a perfect square with a void at its heart — a swimming pool and courtyard that fragments the space to its exterior. From this central point, each wing extends with precise repetition, creating a calm rhythm of enclosure and openness. The geometry is rigorous, but the experience is contemplative, almost ceremonial.
Homothety, a mathematical transformation that scales figures around a fixed point, here becomes a metaphor for architectural experience. As you move through the house, space expands and contracts, perspectives shift, and your own position becomes a variable of the spatial logic. It’s grounding. Inside the concrete shell, nature still prevails — reflected in the water, framed by the portals, or perceived in the material stillness.
As part of an ongoing series that invites leading architects to imagine new forms of living, the Solo Houses project embraces architecture as a collectible experience. Each house is a sculptural retreat, and an invitation to experience design in the most intimate way possible: by living in it.
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Images: Solo Pezo von Ellrichshausen, via Solo Houses
