In Wajay, a small suburban town near Havana, the first prototype houses were built using the prize-winning "Multiflex" construction system presented at the contest held during the IX International Union of Architects (U.I.A.) Congress (Prague, 1967) by a Havana architectural students team under the tutorship of Architect Fernando Salinas.
As a complement to these experiences, our group was commissioned to devise a furniture and basic household equipment system which would be adequate both formally and conceptually to the new housing units. The parameters within which the different components would be designed were derived from the basic modular grill. The pre-existence of a language with many points in common, made the coincidence between furnishings and architecture possible.
Amongst the various house models proposed, one was selected as a first demonstration of the possibilities opened by this coordinated furniture-building design. It was the single space unit, a studio or loft -still an unusual program in our country- set forth as a solution to youth housing problems. The lack of a established tradition as regards this type of dwelling gave us the occasion for demonstrating the possibility of obtaining: an environmental coherence without resorting to the immobility entailed by the simple repetition of identical furniture pieces as part of a “set”. Uniqueness is here allowed for as one or the system's basic premises.
Thus, all available materials and technologies may well be present: wood and bagasse particleboard, metal, canvas and plastics. The beds, now free their isolation in bedrooms –once paired, again single- serve as “soft” surfaces meeting the demands both of rest and social gathering. They share a common space with chairs and armchairs, cardboard or metal lamps, with “hard” surfaces -a folding table or the storage unit tops-, graphics and color, generating a vital dynamics, rich in texture and values, which we proposed would satisfy our youth's most radical demands.
As a complement to these experiences, our group was commissioned to devise a furniture and basic household equipment system which would be adequate both formally and conceptually to the new housing units. The parameters within which the different components would be designed were derived from the basic modular grill. The pre-existence of a language with many points in common, made the coincidence between furnishings and architecture possible.
Amongst the various house models proposed, one was selected as a first demonstration of the possibilities opened by this coordinated furniture-building design. It was the single space unit, a studio or loft -still an unusual program in our country- set forth as a solution to youth housing problems. The lack of a established tradition as regards this type of dwelling gave us the occasion for demonstrating the possibility of obtaining: an environmental coherence without resorting to the immobility entailed by the simple repetition of identical furniture pieces as part of a “set”. Uniqueness is here allowed for as one or the system's basic premises.
Thus, all available materials and technologies may well be present: wood and bagasse particleboard, metal, canvas and plastics. The beds, now free their isolation in bedrooms –once paired, again single- serve as “soft” surfaces meeting the demands both of rest and social gathering. They share a common space with chairs and armchairs, cardboard or metal lamps, with “hard” surfaces -a folding table or the storage unit tops-, graphics and color, generating a vital dynamics, rich in texture and values, which we proposed would satisfy our youth's most radical demands.
Furniture and Equipment Design: María Teresa Muñiz Riva, Heriberto Duverger and Reinaldo Togores.