The main space, empty in content and full in significance, leads to a stairs which born from the earth and climbs to the sky. This stairs want to be a sweet pool in the ground floor. A pool that, apart from allowing us to take a bath within the humid and warm Kenyan climate, reminds us the vocation of union between earth and sky, between mainland and ocean. The stairs – 9.90 meters wide, according with the entrance of the ocean in the coral cliff – lead us to the upper floor. Now the courtyard house is a platform house looking into infinity. Several bedrooms, equipped with both kitchen and bathroom, put its eyes on the horizon and are protected by a corbel that provides shade against the African sun.
The house finds through its materialization how to establish itself as an altar of man in nature. Taking advantage of local resources both structure and enclosure are resolved, with stone from a nearby quarry, mahogany wood and stucco.
Its section tells us how easy the house finds a way to inundate the inner spaces with natural ventilation. You never really know if you are inside or outside, if the house is a courtyard or if the courtyard is a house. With its decisive geometry the house seems to be waiting patient the mangrove to grows enough as to colonize the inner spaces, thus achieving a complete mimesis with the environment on which the house finds its origins. Dalton House is born from the earth, but it is also the earth.
Description of the project by Alberto Morell
From three acres of land, the house is placed in the area situated between the sea entrance in the coral cliff, and the back part of the mangrove. Thus, the house opens to the Indian Ocean on the upper floor and coincides with the mangrove on the ground floor. This position between the entrance of the sea and the back of the mangrove ensures natural ventilation in this Kenyan coast with a humid and warm weather.
The project idea begins on following the original topography from the low level, where the entrance of the house matches the mangrove, to the platform situated on the high level, matching the cliff. In this high part of the topography you have the horizon view of the Indian Ocean, framed by the cliff entrance. The transit from the bottom to the top is made by a staircase of 9.90 meters wide, a journey made by nature before building the house.
The sea entrance in the cliff determinates the width of the stairs and the width of the house courtyard. This courtyard has a small sweet water pool and connects the ground floor and the upper floor. There is no other communication between both floors but this stairs. So in this way we can say we have two overlapping idea houses in one; the courtyard-house downstairs and the platform-house upstairs.
The common areas are established on the ground floor; the living and dining room, the kitchen and the guest rooms. On the top floor we can find three small apartments with a little kitchen and bathroom in each of them.
The house is built from the cheapest local materials. Thus, the structure –columns and slabs- are built in concrete, and the space in between the structure is filled with small coral stones acquired in the nearest local quarry. The finishes of floors, walls, stairs, shells, etc. are made in stucco, called Lamu finish by the native people, a very clean, soft and resistant finish.
All carpentry, doors and windows are made of mahogany two inches thick. They are carved following a geometric pattern of the mosaics from the Alhambra Palace of Granada, Spain. This pattern has had an important influence in some Muslim buildings of this Swahili area in Kenya.
The interior space is configured with screens or diaphragms to establish a continuous and compartmented space. This type of space is typical of the ancient Swahili architecture used in the Kenyan coast, as well as in the Muslim architecture of every part of the world.
