House of Dichotomy

SM House is designed as a weekend or short-term vacation house for a small family. The
steep site is a long irregular shape in one of the villages of Assos, which sits next to the
village road. The family, living in Istanbul, requires a simple house in which the
magnificent view of Aegean see on the long distance can be appreciated. They also want
their house to be large enough to accommodate their occasional guests also. While these
demands and site conditions shape the building pretty much, the rest of the clever
decisions, all belong to the architects Han Tumertekin and Eylem Erdinc.

The single storey house sits on the largest linear area of the site, which extends 50
meters as a single piece of block. The site is excavated down to a level which makes this
block invisible from above, as if it is carved out of the topography itself. The whole brute
piece is melted into the ground thanks to the folded skin which becomes the roof, the wall
and then the ground itself. This is a completely opposite gesture which was used in B2
House in the same village by the same architects (A10 issue #). The structure is simple
steel construction divided into equal 1.60m slices and covered by the local rocks which
are abundant in the village. Those slices define the permeability of the overall block, which
is sometimes totally opaque and sometimes completely transparent or even absent. The
50meters long mass surprisingly acts as an osmosis membrane, or like a sponge which
regulates the gazes and the movements of people living in the house.

Along with the strong tectonic and highly exhilarating features, the SM House displays an
uncanny feeling also, in the meaning Anthony Vidler widely explains in his book, The
Architectural Uncanny. The interior has that homely atmosphere where one hardly grasps
the length of the building, thanks to the smaller living compartments which divides the
block from within. The white walls and ceilings, the wide open transparent front façade,
the gorgeous terraced garden view, and the minimal warm furniture enhance the comfort
of the house. Yet, the house creates a more repelling feeling with its cold and continuous
folding stone skin when viewed from a distance or from the road above. This feeling shifts
the perception of the building from a cozy house to a more industrial building image.

The double image created in this house reflects in a way, the dichotomy of the
contemporary bourgeois life of the modern clients as well. The feeling of being at home
but feeling unhomely is a typical pattern of modern man and this house perfectly displays
this contradiction in every sense. An upper-middle class family, entrepreneur business
people, prefers to have a short-term rural life reserved in a remote village. However, the
comfort of urban life continues with all the high-end furniture and equipments in this rural
setting. The steep topography is incised to embrace the long brute block; however this
almost violent action is domesticated simultaneously and becomes invisible from the other
side. On the other hand, the building turns its back to the village, ignoring the rural life and
reserving a secluded space for the life brought from the city. While the back of the house
acts as a solid impermeable wall, the front is totally transparent and open. The structure is
formed by prefabricated steel posts and beams which seize the stone walls and the roof
made of local resources, again a contradiction living together.

The choice of materials, the spatial organization, the arrangement of the human motions,
the degree of openings on the facades, the perception of the overall block and the
intervention to the topography, all make this house swing back and forth like a pendulum
between a very homely dwelling and an uncanny building; a complete manifestation of the
lives that is designed for.