Changing the rulesAnalysis of Le Villa Savoye

LE CORBUSIER

Le Villa Savoye, in Poissy, is one of the most important designs of Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, better known as Le Corbusier, as he captured all “five points of modern architecture” into one structure.

The five points of modern architecture are; the use of pilotis, free design on the floor plan, free design of façade, the use of horizontal windows and gardened roofs.

The pilotis are the main structure of the house, as they bear all of its weight. By raising the house, you could utilise the space below, therefore making the house more space-efficient.

This principle is the most important, as all other principles are affected by it. By making the pilotis support all the building, façades were no longer load-bearing structures, so free façades and long horizontal windows could be

be developed. At the same time, this meant that the interior walls could be arranged in any kind of configuration, as they didn’t affect supporting walls. By creating a shelter under the house, this meant there was no space for gardening, so to solve this he decided to use the roof as a garden.

The free floor plan allows walls in different floors to be disordered, thus there was no need of aligning walls in order to bear the load of the building, as the walls were no longer part of the structure of the building.

The free façade and the horizontal windows are closely linked. As the function of the exterior walls, of supporting the building has been transferred to the pilotis, now walls become free. So, long horizontal windows are possible, as now you are able to cut the entire wall, without affecting the structure.

As the space under the house has already been used, Le Corbusier decided to replace the green space under the house in the roofs, in order to compensate the landscape loss.

Walls can be entirely replaced by enormous windows that can even replace the whole wall completely. Windows reveal all views from the surrounding yard.

There are four ways of entering Le Villa Savoye, two of them are two small back-doors, the other one is the main en-trance, which is a big entrance, and the last one is through the garage, and you can park in one of the three parking-slots available. This last door is a big sliding door, which slides to the interior of the building.

There are two important features that affect the entrance of the house, one of them is the table near the main door, which can be used to place specific things on it, like the keys. The other one is the sink straight at the entrance, under the ramp, which makes the process of entering of the house as something ceremonial or holy, as this is a key element in many religious or important buildings.

The garage connects directly to the main entrance.

The semicircular driveway around the ground floor measures exactly the turning radius of a 1927 Citroën automobile.

The main circulation through the house, evolves around the idea of following the ramps. This is a straightforward action as the ramp is just straight across the main entrance, to lead you up to the living room, which has astonishing views to the surroundings of the house. Then you can have access to the next ramp, which leads you up to the roof to a framed view. You can also access all levels of the house by a spiral staircase, however this would only be used if you were in a hurry.

Le Villa Savoye is located at Poissy, on the Western outskirts of Paris, France. The house is completely surrounded by trees.

The house is organized into two parts, the public one, and the private one. The private part is made out of the master bedroom, master bathroom, private sitting room and service bedroom. Then the public part is made out of the kitchen and the living room, which allows you to see the terrace.

Le Corbusier, made this house really simple, in a really “purist” form, where most of the main elements of the house are symmetrical, or in the case of the pilotis, these were arranged following a pattern.

The structure of the house, is mainly composed by pilotis. The house was designed both using the Dom·ino principle, mainly free open plan and the use of reinforced concrete columns.

Many of the components of the house, follow a proportion. This proportion is the “golden proportion”, in which is said that its elements are in harmony. This proportion can be found in almost everything in nature, and also in some of the most ancient structures.

First floor plan

First floor

Spiral staircase

Windows

First floor + Second floor corner

First floor room

Service bedroom + Service balcony