PROFILE

OnOffice is the epitome of the trans-European architectural practice. Established in 2008 by the Portuguese architects Joao Viero Costa, Ricardo Guedes, the Italian Francesco Moncada and the Japanese-American Leon Rost, the studio's first port of call was Oslo, where the quartet spent a year before relocating to Porto in 2009. With experience in large, media-savvy acronym-heavy studios like MVRDV, FOA, KSARK, OMA and PLOT (subsequently split into JDS and BIG), OnOffice emerged into the world with a fully-formed understanding of the relationship between architecture and modern media. Their practice is fully committed to extensive research - 'the greater the research, the more departure points we find for design' - with the aim of distilling ideas down to a single solution. Currently most influenced by the 'economy and ecology,' thanks to the knock-on effect of the global downturn, they place their practice at the heart of the current 'sustainability revolution', considered integral to their work.

SHUFFLE HOUSE

OnOffice's global approach is informed by their experience of Dutch, Scandinavian and Japanese architecture culture. The proposed Shuffle House transcended their initial impulse for a piece of paper architecture and is instead intended for a specific plot, located close to their office, with a specific client in mind. With one question at the heart of the design - 'if each room has different demands for space, shouldn’t each room claim the space it needs, like a Mondrian grid?' - the Shuffle House is a jigsaw of internal volumes that uses the typical massing and forms of the Porto townhouse, reorganised around a thinly sliced circulation section that allows for a multiplicity of internal spaces. The adhoc external facade reflects this reorganised interior logic, while the facade is clad in a design based on a scaled up Azulejo ceramic tile.


http://www.onoffice.no

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