架构师提供的文本描述。拉贾斯坦尼城市Ajmer是穆斯林朝圣之路上的一个重要目的地，它的郊区普什卡尔对印度教徒也有着巨大的宗教意义。有着复杂，密集，有时混乱的城市粮食，尽管它是杂乱无章的浮标，阿杰默散发着缓慢的生活节奏。养老金领取者通常退休到Ajmer，渴望享受它毗邻阿拉瓦利山麓和湖下，并退回到悠闲的暮年。

Text description provided by the architects. The Rajasthani city of Ajmer is an important destination on the Muslim pilgrimage trail and its suburb Pushkar also bears huge religious significance for Hindus. With a complex, dense and at times chaotic urban grain, despite its mofussil flotsam Ajmer exudes a slow pace of life. Pensioners typically retire to Ajmer, eager to enjoy its adjacency to both the Aravali foothills and lake below and retreat into laid back twilight years.

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“城市演员”是建筑师年迈的父母及其来访的儿子、女儿和大孩子们的住所。作为空间、细节和材料的最佳利用的练习，这些都被提炼成最基本的要素。这座价值22，000美元的房子被安放在一个简陋的地块里，这块地是艾季默的边缘地带破败不堪的发展留下的。

The Urban Cast is a residence for the architect’s elderly parents and their visiting sons, daughter and grand children. Conceived as an exercise in the optimal use of space, detail and material, these are refined to their bare essentials. The $22,000 house fits snugly into a humble plot left over by the ramshackle development of Ajmer’s fringes.

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由于预算较小，场地面积仅为8米x20米，房屋的布置源于一种愿望，即增加地块占地面积所带来的紧张空间。

With a small budget and a meager 8m x 20m site, the arrangement of the house is derived from an aspiration to enhance the tight spaces afforded by the plot’s footprint.

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除了Ajmer的规划条例允许的门廊和车库外，前方有4.5米宽的法定保证金、后方的3米宽和两侧的250万块都是开放的。车库的位置被房子的主卧室占据，具有讽刺意味的是，它提供了最慷慨的视图，从而对房子施加了最大的控制。同样，剩下的两间卧室也被提升到房子的核心上方，形成了一条清晰的通道，穿过地块的长度，捕捉到山间的微风飘向下面的城市。这样，居住空间和卧室都可以跨越和窃取畅通无阻的轴向视图，向西延伸到城市下方的东麓。

A 4.5m wide statutory margin to the front, a 3m one to the rear and 2.5m ones at the sides are left open, save for a porch and garage permitted by Ajmer’s planning regulations. The place of the garage is taken up by house’s master bedroom, as it ironically grants the most generous views and thus exerts the most control over the house. Likewise, the two remaining bedrooms are promoted to above the core of the house, creating a clear channel that runs right through the length of the plot and captures the mountain breeze as it drifts down to the city below. This enables both the living spaces and bedrooms to straddle and steal unimpeded axial views out west to the city below to the eastern foothills above.

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整个构图所围绕的关键空间是高耸的家庭区域。它赋予了一种能力，能够成为房子的核心，感觉到堆积如山的微风围绕着你的身体，似乎使混凝土建筑膨胀。一个750毫米宽的桥梁和地下沟巩固了房子的流通在一个有利的点，从这里你可以看到整个房子。在绝对必要的情况下，天花板的高度会上升到一个水平，这样就可以安全地容纳头顶上的风扇，并在上面的地板上形成上升的睡眠平台，从而消除了对床的需求。同样，这些讲台在屋顶露台上回响，为家庭和大孩子提供了一个坐着和户外睡觉的地方。两层的联锁，以适应一个单一的故事卷内。

The key space that the entire composition orbits around is the lofty family area. It grants an ability to be able to be at the core of the house, feel a stack-effect induced breeze run around one’s body and seemingly inflate the concrete building. A 750mm wide bridge and undercroft consolidate the house’s circulation at a vantage point from which one can perceive the house at large. Wherever strictly necessary, ceiling heights rise to a level allowing the safe accommodation of overhead fans and form raised sleeping podiums on the floor above, eliminating the need for beds. Likewise, these podiums are echoed on the roof terrace above to provide a sitting and outdoor sleeping place for the family and grand children. Two stories interlock to fit snugly inside a single story volume.

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最简单的结构系统150毫米的墙和板是使用始终，因为最薄的墙壁可能最大化的房子的可用空间。同样，房屋的建造也忠实地遵循了一个900毫米x 900毫米模块的数字，这个模块上散布着150毫米的流道带。受承包商唯一可用的钢模板的支配，这些都是建筑师以前在该市附近的拉贾斯坦邦医院工作中留下的残余物。

The simplest possible structural system of 150mm walls and slabs is used throughout, as the thinnest walls possible maximize the house’s usable space. So too, the construction of the house faithfully adheres to the numerology of a 900mm x 900mm module interspersed by runner bands of 150mm. Dictated by the only steel formwork sheets available to the contractor these were the leftovers from the architect’s previous endeavour in the city, the nearby Rajasthan Hospital.

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这种对经济发展的态度是人们对房子背后所有想法的基础。尽管最后的费用仅为每平方米150美元，但所有的配件都是重复定制的设计，都是在当地制造的，并打算超越通常预期的建筑常用元素的作用：开放系统允许安全、自然光的控制、山风的进入和保护免受昆虫的影响，卢浮宫的简单设计由弯曲和铆接的GI板组成；同样的，当房子的混凝土浇筑时，这些用作模板的板也会被增强，成为建筑中的私生子。在前面提到的厨房橱柜系统中，回收用于家庭用具和隐藏服务的想法在正门处出现，它与混凝土的邻接仍然留下疤痕。自始至终，这座房子都试图通过其细节的多价性来讲述自己的故事。

This attitude towards an economy of ends underlies all thinking behind the house. Despite a final cost of only US$150 per sq m, all fittings are repeated bespoke designs, locally fabricated and intended to surpass the roles normally expected of the quotidian elements of building: The opening systems allow for security, the control of natural light, the ingress of the mountain breeze and protection from insects in a simple louvre design composed from bent and riveted GI sheets; Likewise, these same sheets that acted as formwork when the house’s concrete was cast are augmented to become bastardized elements of building. Recycled in the aforementioned kitchen cabinet system to house utensils and conceal services, the denouement of the idea is at the main gate, which still bears the scars of its adjacency to curing concrete. Throughout, the house tries to tell its own story through the multi-valency of its detail.

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结果当手把抛光的水磨石地板放在暴露的GI固定装置和混凝土背景下的暗淡光泽时，房子被刺眼的阳光柔和的打击渲染成灰色的变换色调。房子在这些有形的经济陈述中寻求它的美学，就像我们建筑师在一种经济的手段中发现它的形式一样。

Result As the hand laid polished terrazzo floor sits against the dull sheen of the exposed GI fixtures and concrete backdrop, the house is rendered as shifting hues of grey by the harsh sunlight’s soft strike. The house seeks its aesthetic in these tangible statements of economy, as we as architects found its forms in an economy of means.

当遇到为四个不同的混凝土楼梯定制模板的问题时，地面和一楼之间的模板的形式通过旋转90改变，并部署到任何需要陡峭攀登的地方：这个增强的复制品被铸造三次，将屋顶平台与水塔结合起来，使铺层模板的长度翻两番。由于无法迎合传统的富丽堂皇的审美价值，“城市铸”在概念和形式上都成为了一项经济发明的投资，试图颂扬受苛刻预算限制的平庸设计，提供世界上最经济的混凝土房屋。

Upon being confronted with the problem of customizing the formwork for four different concrete staircases, the form of that which runs between the ground and the first floor is transformed through rotating it 90 and deployed wherever a steeper ascent is needed: This augmented replica is cast three times to unite the roof terraces with the water tower, quadrupling the mileage of the pieces of ply formwork. Unable to pander to traditional aesthetic values of plushness, The Urban Cast becomes an investment of economic invention throughout both its conception and form, attempting to celebrate the banality of design restricted by a harsh budget and deliver the most economical concrete house in the world.