Putting A Finger On Architectural Attraction
X-factor is an “inexplicable quality of a person’s attractiveness or sexiness.” X-factor makes its bearer stand out from the rest. You can’t put a finger on it, the x-factor, but it arrests you, affects your senses, and makes you stare. No, the x-factor is not always a consequence of symmetrical and chiseled beauty. When the x-factor is at its most intense in a celebrity, it spawns cult following and catapults the celebrity into the stratosphere of multi-million dollar annual incomes. This mysterious factor transcends time and space—the magnetism and presence of those who possess it leap out of photographs and LCD screens. Since you cannot identify or explain it, you expose yourself to it for as long as is bearable, in hopes of enlightenment so that you too might acquire the x-factor. You wish.
Take the regal Meryl Streep or the leathery Clint Eastwood—two eminently bankable members of Hollywood royalty well into their golden years. Their x-factor delivered when collagen failed. Then there is Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt—young, fast and furious, oozing x-factor. We can only ogle and remind ourselves to breathe.
I now bravely postulate that there is also an x-factor in architecture. As with the glamour industries, one cannot completely zero-in on the source of architectural x-factor, but I shall attempt to demonstrate it by dissecting Jason Buesalido’s latest residence project that he calls the Kasoy House.
The project, named after the street where it is planted, is a renovation of a 1980s hip-roofed residence. Like most houses built during that decade, its walls and columns were of poured concrete reinforced with steel—that was the prevailing formwork technology available then. The frequent outcomes of such technology were offspring of Brutalist Architecture that was popularized in the Philippines by no less than National Artist for Architecture Leandro Locsin. The style propelled Locsin to national fame. This house, however, was not a Locsin creation, and its owners were fully justified in their intention to completely erase every trace of its brutalism. In short, it was ugly, and the overhaul, necessary.
Buensalido injected new soul into the forlorn front facade by connecting the horizontal planes of the ground floor, second floor and eaves with a transcending diagonal plate to form a stylized Z. In doing so, the formerly symmetrical and boring facade acquired dynamism without compromising the structural and architectural integrity of the building. Columns remain where they were to support the building; and openings stay where they ventilate and illuminate the interior spaces. In the hands of the undisciplined, this house would have received a fresh set of casement moldings, fake winter shutters, columns and corbels that do not support anything, perhaps an arch here and there, and let’s not forget horizontal wood louvers on top of a solid wall that are now the rage of local “modern” architecture.
Buensalido chose the way of intelligent innovation and gave the house new life. Although I was slightly disappointed to discover that the Z facade was nothing more than just that—a facade (I was expecting a stronger follow through of form up to the rear)—I understood from the design intention that it was truly just a veneer; and Buensalido made no attempt to disguise its superficiality or explain it away as something more profound. For that, I forgive him. The design maintained its integrity by being honest about its fakery; it actually became interesting and engaging. Obvious was the intelligent innovation to an old and tired idea.
Boldness is the push to “bend rules, the willingness to risk shame and even rejection” within a framework of calculated consequences. Brashness is everything that boldness is, but done in haste, insensitivity and imprudence with a clear disregard for consequences. Buensalido aims at boldness with the Kasoy House by superimposing on it another design language yet respecting the original building shell. The stairs, which before was a semi spiral, is now a straight flight to the second floor. A similarly assertive straight glass floor under the stairs reveals a decorative gravel bed that runs from the main door to the pool at the back, emphasizing the sweeping progression of spaces along this axis.
The language of the Z facade, although not followed through in general form to the other elevations of the building, is meticulously echoed inside the house. The railings of the stairs depart from the usual balustrade-handrail design. Reincarnated as a sculptural piece of folded volumes and planes, the stairway now provides the visual focus of the entire living room. The ceilings on both floors repeat the angular rhythm of the stair railing and the front facade with clear discipline. The project’s architectural boldness is tempered by the discipline of knowing when to stop.
According to Buensalido, his architecture is always a response to stimuli. In the case of the Kasoy House, one stimulus (or deadener?) in the environment was the tedium of safe, off-white washed walls with natural brown stone. In response, Buensalido introduced generous wall surface areas with teak wood finished tile to lift the stark white Z wall up from the facade of the building. The result is an interesting play of positive and negative volumes and masses that in turn generate implied spaces.
The architecture demonstrates faithfulness to materials and color through the repetition of wood and white in the building. The only counterpoint to the wood and white palette is the occupants’ introduction of muted color in every room. The follow through of the color and material scheme has the consistency of a sinfully thick, stick-to-the-spoon-and-melt-in-your-mouth leche flan.
The renovation project was implemented within a strictly controlled budget. As any proud architect would to another, Buensalido beamed about his baby, but also lamented about how much better it could have been had economics not hit the brakes. I completely understood. All architectural projects have and always will suffer the same fate (no architect ever believes his budget is enough). Given the constraints, it is remarkable how Buensalido was able to pull off architecture that is intelligent, innovative, bold and consistent.
If these four qualities (intelligence, innovativeness, boldness and consistency) are all it takes for architecture to possess the x-factor, then truly beautiful architecture would stand on every street corner. The four concepts are standard curriculum modules in local architecture schools after all. Yet remarkable design comes few and very far between in our side of the world. And so most of us keep staring at the buildings we admire, wondering the how and the why of its x-factor, hoping for enlightenment and wisdom.
There’s a popular quote from philosopher M. H. McKee who wrote, “Wisdom is knowing the right path to take. Integrity is taking it.” Ah, let us not wonder too long.
With permission from BluPrint Magazine. Reposted from Volume 02, 2011. Photographs by Ed Simon.
