The bulbous lower level of this residence in Thailand by local studio Architectkidd looks like it’s being squished by the rectilinear storey above it (+ slideshow).
Architectkidd designed contrasting forms for the two floors of Kirimaya House in Khao Yai, north east of Bangkok.
“The site of the house in a wide open and horizontal landscape led us to re-think how typical houses are constructed,” said the architects.
Covered in vertical wood shingles around the top, the long first floor sticks out further on one side than the other.
The round volume beneath is clad using locally-fired clay tiles that are slightly staggered on top of each other to create the curving form.
Windows are cut out from the blob-like shape in horizontal strips, where the tiles curve inward to meet the frames.
The building is entered through double doors beneath the overhang of the first floor, which covers a stepped terrace that is used as a space for yoga.
Guest bedrooms, bathrooms and storage rooms are located within the ground-floor blob.
A central staircase leads to an open-plan living area in the cuboid above, which leads out on a terrace on one side of the blob’s roof.
The master bedroom is housed in the end of the cantilever, with the diagonal steel supports for the floating section breaking up the view through the full-height windows.
Photography is by Luke Yeung and Manassak Senachak.
Here’s some more information from the architects:
Two contrasting structures are joined to form this private residence in Thailand.
The house located 150 kilometres north east of Bangkok, near Khao Yai. The site of the house in a wide open and horizontal landscape led us to re-think how typical houses are constructed.
Instead of repetitive structures and vertical enclosures containing interior functions, we were interested in how the interior spaces of the house – with their different uses, dimensions, levels and orientation – could respond differently to the surrounding outdoor spaces.
Each floor of the house has a distinct layout, geometry and structure. The upper floor contains the main living and bedroom areas that have a specific direction toward the outside views. In contrast, the lower floor is a circular space that is omni-directional in its orientation and responds to the different ways that people can approach the house by car and by foot.
While each floor is distinct, they are co-dependent with each other, with the upper floor resting on and cantilevered from the lower floor. The lower floor, being close to the surrounding landscape, is built up from locally-fired clay tiles that are laid horizontally and stacked.
Belgian studio Pascal François Architects has completed a two-storey house in rural Belgium that slots beneath the roof of an old stable block (+ slideshow).
Pascal François Architects designed the residence to take the place of another house that had been demolished in Lokeren, northern Belgium. It occupies the exact footprint of the old home and its end intersects with the single-storey stable alongside.
A glazed kitchen sits at the point where the two buildings overlap, but is not joined to the existing structure of the stable.
The architect had to demonstrate to planning authorities that the two buildings weren’t connected in order to gain permission to build.
“The reason for positioning the extension under the existing roof was in search of morning light into the kitchen,” François told Dezeen.
“It caused difficulties because we could not build a volume exceeding 1000 cubic metres, and they [the authorities] were counting the barn and the house together because they are touching,” he added.
The rectilinear house sits perpendicular to the barn. Ceramic panels clad the top half of the structure, while the lower section is covered with vertical strips of wood that are interspersed with floor-to-ceiling windows.
The entrance to the house is also covered in similar wooden strips, allowing it to blend in with the walls.
Once inside, residents are faced with a large window, which looks out to a long water feature that extends outwards from the opposite wall.
This space leads through to a monochrome living and dining area with a wooden deck off to one side, while an office is positioned at the opposite end.
Three bedrooms and a pair of bathrooms are located upstairs, and the old barn is still used for keeping horses.
For a number of years, the Flemish government have allowed un-zoned buildings to be renovated or even to be rebuilt.
The rules, however, are extremely stringent. With this project, we have tried to respond to this reality in a contemporary manner.
As the line of what is possible is so very thin, obtaining the building permit alone has taken two and a half years.
The new habitable volume is built on the compulsory “footprint zone” of the old house, but extends towards the barn without actually touching it construction-wise.
The purpose was to catch the light in the east. The result is an exciting symbiosis between old and new.
The barn determines the character of the site and of the building. Hidden behind a wooden “ribbon”, a number of openings needed to be added.
Further on, the ribbon is draped around the new house and finally becomes a usable terrace.
The upper floor of the house is covered with ceramic panels, the colour and the material referring to the existing barn’s roof.
The remarkably sober and closed façade on the street side hides a very light and spacious interior, which derives its energy from a series of patios.
This house by Portuguese architect Miguel Marcelino rests on top of an old warehouse in Torres Novas, central Portugal (+ slideshow).
Miguel Marcelino extended the existing building upwards to create the single-storey residence, which overlooks a valley planted with olive groves.
The warehouse was first built in the 1980s and was originally planned as a two-storey structure, although it has taken 30 years for the second phase of construction to take place.
Marcelino used brickwork for the exterior of the extension, then added white paint to unite the two floors.
A protruding concrete slab divides the two storeys and creates a balcony around two sides of the building, while a similar-sized roof slab forms a canopy overhead.
A bridge with a steel balustrade leads to the house’s entrance from the adjacent hillside and is positioned alongside a large olive tree.
The entrance hall opens out into a living and dining area, featuring a sliced-off south-east corner that increases the size of the surrounding balcony.
Three bedrooms are positioned along the east side of the house, while the kitchen and bathroom sit on the opposite side.
Concrete walls and ceilings are exposed in each room and timber panels covers the floor.
The briefing was to build a three-bedroom house on top of a warehouse built in the 80’s, where part of the roof was made with a flat slab and a small balcony, precisely with that idea of later building the house.
Given the constraints of the existing warehouse, the house shape turns out to be automatically set: a box that rests on the existing structure.
The rooms are placed to the east, the toilets to the west, as well as the kitchen, looking to a centennial olive tree.
The existing balcony will be maintained and “duplicated” as a shading element.
The living room is placed south where its south/east corner is diagonally cut in a way that the balcony could enlarge and offer an outdoor area protected from the sun and rain, overlooking the valley.
Japanese studio Tato Architects references the ad-hoc extensions of neighbouring buildings with the steel, concrete and wooden volumes that make up this house in Osaka, Japan (+ slideshow).
Located on the hillside of Mount Ikoma, House in Ishikiri is a three-storey family home and was designed by Tato Architects as a composition of three separate blocks.
From the rear, the house comprises a glazed ground-floor storey with a gabled upper floor floating above, while the street facade reveals an extra storey and garage tucked underneath.
“We observed favourably the mosaic pattern of old and rebuilt houses telling each history of over 80 years,” said architect Yo Shimada, explaining how he approached the design as a collection of connected elements.
“We proceeded with the design by making the places step by step, searching for an appropriate way of building the house that adapts to surrounding environments,” he added.
A steel-plated box forms part of the lower ground floor, and contains a storage space and small toilet. A steel framework extends across it, creating space for the adjacent garage.
A split-level living and dining room occupies a double-height space on the middle floor and features sliding doors that open the space out to a wooden roof terrace.
A children’s bedroom is also situated on this floor. Positioned on top of the steel box, it comes with a row of windows around its base.
A staircase cantilevered from the dining room’s concrete wall leads up to a master bedroom and balcony on the top floor.
The kitchen is positioned at the opposite end of the house, overlooking a rear garden. A guest room above can be accessed by climbing a wooden ladder that extends up through a hole in the ceiling.
Dark concrete walls and a black house form volume above it, a translucent lean-to roof, a white high flat roof and a silver box under it. Those totally different and inconsistent materials and colours are combined to form this house.
The site is in a residential area developed around 1930, sloping to the west on a hillside of Mt. Ikoma, which overlooks the urban area of Osaka Plain. We observed favourably the mosaic pattern of old and rebuilt houses telling each history of over eighty years.
It was not easy to find out the way for making the house coordinated to the surroundings as the site is 3.5m up from the road so that the house would look larger than the actual size. We proceeded with the design by making places step by step searching an appropriate way of building the house that adapt to surrounding environments.
First, we made concrete walls with rough texture by using formwork made by small split lauan to match with old masonry walls and concrete-block walls in surrounding environments, and covered those with a black house form structure following the roof form of houses in the neighbourhood. After that, living space is made in the way as renovating interior space. The space for facilities to support the daily life such as a kitchen and a bathroom is made in between the concrete walls and the cliff-retaining wall behind the house, covered with a translucent lean-to roof and wooden windows and doors.
On the road side, a thin, modern flat-roof, which represents a new life style and cars covers the box made of steel plates commonly used for temporary enclosure at construction sites in Japan, pretending the atmosphere of ongoing construction sites.
These resulted in making places that are related to both ‘before’ and ‘after’. Living places are provided in space where different time-axes meet as ‘concrete walls’ and ‘a black house-type,’ ‘concrete walls’ and ‘a retaining wall,’ and ‘a white flat-roof’ and ‘boxes of steel plates.’
Rethinking the whole residential are from the way that this house exists would suggests us to rediscover potentials and richness of all elements and space among those with different histories in the area.
Project name: House in Ishikiri Location of site: Osaka, Japan Site area: 233.32m2 Building area: 61.37m2 Total floor area: 99.38m2 Type of Construction: Steel Program: house Project by: Tato Architects Principal designer:Yo Shimada Design period: March 2010 – April 2012 Construction period: July 2012 – January 2013
A raw concrete interior is contained behind the white limestone facade of this townhouse in Lisbon by ARX Portugal (+ slideshow).
Slotted in amongst a row of traditional Lisbon townhouses, the five-storey residence was designed by local studio ARX Portugal with the same tall and narrow proportions as its neighbours.
The facade of the building is an arrangement of white limestone blocks, broken up by a grid of protruding piers and narrow windows.
“Just as most of Lisbon’s old buildings, it is a flat elevation whose expressiveness comes from its rhythmic nature and the light-and-shade effects produced with the backing-up of its surfaces,” said the architects.
Contrastingly, the rear facade is made up entirely of windows, fronted by steel balconies that overlook a secluded garden.
Walls, ceilings and staircases inside the house are bare concrete. “The precision of the design as well as the inclusion of two doors in most rooms endows the five small floors with a sense of a generous space and gives its dwellers a strong feeling of fluidity and freedom,” added the architects.
The main street-level entrance to the house leads onto the storey above the garden, which primarily encompasses a garage and living room.
The dining room and kitchen are located on the floor below and open out to the paved terrace and lawn.
The first and second floors accommodate bedrooms and bathrooms, while an office occupies the uppermost floor.
There’s also a small roof patio, featuring a small bench and a solitary tree.
The concept for this house emerges from a reflection on the identity of Lisbon architecture, a recurring type of 6-metre-wide and 15-meter-long deep house, ending in a small garden in the back. It is a 5-storey building with two radically different elevations: one “public” in white lioz limestone (the most used in Lisbon) and the one in the back, in glass, connected by an interior world in exposed concrete, punctuated by birch wood elements.
The elevation obviously follows on the Lisbon tradition, stressed further by the windows’ rhythmic structure, opened in a span system created by horizontal strips and vertical bars – characteristic of the city architecture.
Just as most of Lisbon’s old buildings, it is a flat elevation whose expressiveness comes from its rhythmic nature and the light-and-shade effects produced with the backing-up of its surfaces. This apparatus brings the elevation a sense of time, expressed by the change in the shadows throughout the day: from a more subtle morning light – with no direct sunlight – to the strong contrasting afternoon shadows.
Besides a straightforward concern in aligning the elevation with the surrounding lines, the design stresses an obvious contrast between the block-type bottom, and the more dematerialised crest.
If on the one hand the ground floor responds defensively to the narrowness of the street, combined with the fact that neighbours park their cars in front of doors and windows, on the other hand the top comes out much lighter and dematerialised: it is a space at once interior and exterior – a top patio allowing the transition between the lower building, to the south, and the higher one, to the north. Nevertheless, despite its intimate nature, the space allows a view over the surrounding landscape and to the far-off Christ the King statue to the south, along the street line.
On the back elevation we have explored the extreme transparency which extends the interior onto the exterior and opens up the view to the garden – where a splendid Linden tree takes centre stage – leading the eyes from the top floors over Lisbon’s hills, the Tagus river, and the South Bank. Radically opened to the exterior, the generous morning light that floods in directly is balanced by the grey concrete making up all the surfaces.
Inside, the precision of the design, as well as the inclusion of two doors in most rooms, endows the five small floors with a sense of a generous space, and give its dwellers a strong feeling of fluidity and freedom.
The constructive research for this project provides an example in which the whole structure shapes the space and becomes architecture in itself: the whole concrete structure, built with only 3 planes – two gables and a transversal plan – is set forth and designed to define the essential house space.
At once a natural and staged space, of both contemplation and living experience, the garden is expressed as an archeological site, where all layers of time, since the house was built, are present. Here, one can still see the ancient techniques that have raised thick stone walls (often recovered from other buildings), later brick overlays, mortar or paint, as well as the stones from the demolished house that have become pavement.
Location: Lisbon, Portugal Project: 2010-2011 Construction: 2012-2013 Gross construction surface: 436 m2
Architecture: ARX Portugal, Arquitectos Lda. (José Mateus, Nuno Mateus) Work Team: Isabel Gorjão Henriques, Miguel Torres, Joana Pedro, Sofia Raposo, Rodrigo Gorjão Henriques, Paulo Rocha Structures: SAFRE, Projectos e Estudos de Engenharia Lda. Electrical, telecommunications and security planning: Energia Técnica – Gabinete de Engenharia, Lda Contractor: Manuel Mateus Frazão
A black steel staircase links the six storeys of this townhouse in Tel Aviv by Israeli architect Pitsou Kedem (+ slideshow).
Pitsou Kedem designed the house for a family and added a private terrace and swimming pool on the rooftop.
“The owners wanted to create the experience of life in a private residence, but within the city,” said architect Pitsou Kedem. “The authentic urban skyline reveals Tel Aviv’s rooftops to those in the courtyard and thus realises the urban experience that the owners wanted to achieve.”
All but one of the house’s floors opens out onto a balcony or terrace.
A penthouse with sliding glass doors leads out to the roof deck and swimming pool, which are encased behind a clear glass balustrade.
The fourth floor contains a study, small living space and a spa. A combined kitchen and living room occupies the floor below and is surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows.
The parents of the family have an entire floor to themselves, with an en-suite bathroom and extensive closet space, while two more bedrooms and bathrooms are located on the level below, and belong to the children.
A guest suite consisting of a bedroom, bathroom and living space can be found on the ground floor and opens out to a small enclosed terrace.
The black steel staircase ascends through the rear corner of the house, beside a grey silicate-block wall. Exposed timber floors and wooden panelling also feature throughout.
A 270 square metre plot was used as the foundation for a Tel Aviv town house consisting of a basement and an additional 6 floors. The owners wanted to create the experience of life in a private residence but within the city.
The architect Pitsou Kedem designed an urban style courtyard on the roof and, as a result, reversed the usually, permanent, order of things. The authentic, urban skyline reveals to those in the courtyard, Tel Aviv’s rooftops and thus realises the urban experience that the owners wanted to achieve.
The architectural design was based on a cross section of the structure whilst creating a physical and visual relationship between all the floors. Each floor encompasses an area of some 100 square meters with every floor being used for a different purpose. This enables the house’s residents to create common meeting spaces alongside separated spaces that, together, maximise the usage off the space and maximise the privacy that day to day life in a home requires.
Thus, the design incorporates a separate floor for the parents living area which includes a large library, a floor devoted to children’s rooms, a common living floor and the upper floor for the pool. Wooden paneling is used around openings on the ground floor and is also used to disguise the entrance hall and a separate living unit.
The home’s internal stairwell is designed as a dramatic, vertical line. In contrast to the stairwell common in most apartment buildings which is usually designed to be hidden from view, in this design the stairwell is open and runs along a wall covered with grey silicate blocks.
Architects: Pitsou Kedem Architects Design team: Pitsou Kedem, Hagar Tzvi, Hila Sela Location: Tel Aviv Size: 610 square metres Plot size: 260 sqm Total floor area: 450 sqm Design & build : 2009-2012 Program: Single family house
Walls of weathered stone and timber surround this gabled family retreat by British studio McLean Quinlan Architects on the Devon coastline in south-west England (+ slideshow).
McLean Quinlan Architects located the building against a slope, in a position that offers views of both the surrounding countryside and the ocean.
Wooden panels clad the long sides of the building, while the gabled ends are constructed from stone and the pitched roof is covered with grey slate.
The architects intended this materials palette to reference the aesthetic of American summer houses. “The clients had in mind initially elements of a New England beach house, and so external materials of green oak boarding were used together with the local stone,” said architect Kate Quinlan.
A protruding stone wall marks the house’s entrance, leading through a heavy wooden door to a “mud room” used for drying wetsuits and storing wet-weather clothing such as overcoats and wellington boots.
An open-plan kitchen, living room and dining area occupies most of the ground level, and includes a children’s play area, a large larder for storing food and a laundry space.
A staircase spans the width of the house, leading up to a first floor containing five bedrooms and three bathrooms – offering plenty of space for guests. A second staircase is hidden amongst the closets, ascending to an attic with two extra bedrooms.
The house in located a small village on the North Devon Coast. It was built as a holiday home for the family, and designed to maximise the number of bedrooms and open living space.
The site is accessed down a long drive and the building is tucked up against the slope of the site to make the most of the long views down to the sea from the upper levels.
A stone gable end is the first glimpse you get of this building with a dark industrial chimney dark against grey stone.
The clients had in mind initially elements of a New England beach house, and so external materials of green oak boarding was used together with the local stone.
The resulting building is simple in form. A neat pitched volume coupled with a generous entrance porch.
This provides a formal entrance and provides direct access to a large mud room for drying wetsuits wet from days out surfing, and drying out muddy boots from walking the costal paths.
The building is split down the centre by a central stair. On entering the hall opens up to a double height space with views of the garden.
The main living space is open plan, with a separate games space for the kids and the practical necessities of a large larder and laundry.
Up the open tread stairs, on the first floor the spit volumes separate the master bedroom suite from the main bedroom wing.
Here there is a long corridor with a single pane window at the far end leads to 4 double bedrooms.
Half way along is a ‘secret stair, tucked amongst the linen cupboards, which winds up to take you to to two further attic bedrooms above.
A woodland landscape scene is hidden within a pattern of coloured polka dots on the exterior of this house extension in Moers, Germany, by Düsseldorf studio MCKNHM Architects (+ slideshow).
MCKNHM Architects made three separate additions to the single-storey family home, adding a second storey on the rooftop, a sauna and guesthouse in the garden, plus a combined workshop and garage at the site’s entrance.
The architects named the project CMYK House as a reference to the colour model used to create the dotty facade of the roof extension and guesthouse.
The mixture of cyan, magenta, yellow and black dots give the walls a halftone pattern. At close range, the dots can be made out individually, while from a short distance they blend together in a camouflage pattern and further away they form an image of a deer in a forest.
“The colour scheme of the pixilated image is intentionally reflected by the landscaping, consisting of wildflower meadows,” said the architects. “From a middle distance, the human eye interpolates the colours and a shaded and textured surface of brown and green seems to appear, leading to a camouflage effect.”
The architects chose to conceal an image of a deer within the facade, as a reference to hunting trophies that were once displayed inside the house.
“The father of the client was a hunter and the house was filled with stuffed animals at the time the son took it over,” explained the architects.
The original house was built without any views of the nearby lake, so the combined sauna and guesthouse was positioned to face onto the water and opens out to a generous terrace.
The rooftop extension accommodates a small office and lounge, also with views of the lake.
A timber-clad garage and workshop was the final addition.
When the father of the client bought the plot of land besides an open gravel pit south of Moers, Germany in the late fifties, it was still unclear if the mine would be converted into a landfill of garbage or a lake. Luckily, the family ended up with a villa at an idyllic lake that is surrounded by a forest.
Because of the possible landfill at the time of construction, the house was orientated away from this now beautiful nature reserve: An existing garage was blocking the view towards the lake. The extensive paved driveway was situated between the house and the fantastic nature setting. Inside the house, none of the spaces provides a view of the lake.
Context
The new addition is set to solve these problems. The approach towards the site places three pavilions onto the park-like property. They are positioned in a way to achieve new spatial qualities in-between the old building and new additions, helping to connect the lake with the existing house.
At the same time the old house with its white plaster façade and its black double pitched roof, that evoked a sense of melancholy and displays a certain stuffiness in its German fifties zeitgeist needed a more fresh addition. Therefore, the extension is also supposed to add a friendlier and playful atmosphere.
Three pavilions
The workshop and garage is moved and situated as an autonomous pavilion towards the entrance of the site. A second pavilion accommodates a sauna and guesthouse, which is assigned to the existing house and directly orientated to the lake through an open terrace. A third pavilion is situated on top of the roof of the old house, extending the existing attic into a workspace and lounge with a beautiful lake-view.
Concept diagram
Façade
All new additions are clad with a special façade, made up from a building textile that features a colourful but also camouflaging print that was developed through a very close and intensive design process with the client. The print fulfils a number of tasks: It is an image that is very roughly pixilated by a halftone pattern, which is exaggerated in a way, that by close distance the façade only displays big dots in the Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Kay colour realm.
Concept diagram
These dots create a pattern, which is also a reminiscent to the petticoats of the fifties, adding a playful colour palette and graphic to the existing situation. The colour scheme of the pixilated image is intentionally reflected by the landscaping, consisting of wild flower meadows.
From a middle distance, the human eye interpolates the colours a shaded and textured surface of brown and green seems to appear, leading to a camouflage effect. The additions seem to blend within the colour palette of the site.
Only from far distance at the lake, the image will appear: A forest landscape with a deer, a classic and conservative German motive giving an ironic touch to the existing building and a reference to its history, as the father of the client was a hunter and the house was filled with stuffed animals at the time the son took it over.
The interior spaces are highly flexible the pavilions feature a ‘multi-wall’ that is designed as a ‘hollow’ 1,20m thick wall or woodblock, which functions as a storage that is accessible from both inside and outside. The sauna-pavilion has a ‘multi-cube’ that houses the actual sauna and also a space for technical equipment, a wardrobe and bathroom fixtures on the outside. Through these interventions, the space becomes highly flexible and also open, the space is one continuum, there are no doors separating the bathroom from the Sauna.
The concept of the building is creating a new experience on the site and adding something very playful and friendly. At the same time the building is blending into its natural environment. In this sense the addition mediates the genius loci of the existing building and the natural environment the architecture is not an alien anymore it becomes more natural.
Some measures were taken to not only blend the house visually into its context but also to provide a tactile sense of dematerialisation that is reflected in the actual construction. All building details aim to hide the physical thickness of the construction and create a very light to paper thin appearance quality. The parapet flashing is set behind the façade, visible doors and windows are encased in a metal siding which peaks to a millimetre thick tip that hides the real wall thickness, the textile façade is wrapped around the corners and has a very minimal aluminium frame.
A combined car park and terrace covers the roof of this hillside house in Los Angeles by Californian studio Anonymous Architects (+ slideshow).
Anonymous Architects designed the single-storey home for an actor. It is situated on the edge of a steep slope, so the floors are arranged from top to bottom, with an entrance on the roof and rooms on the level below.
“The added benefit of providing the parking and the house as the same structure is to eliminate the need for additional foundations and walls for a garage,” said architect Simon Storey.
“The inversion moves the typical ground floor of the house up on the roof, and makes the simple act of arriving home and driving onto the roof of the house a surprise every time,” he added.
Supported by chunky concrete columns, the house appears to be thrusting away from the edge of the slope. A recessed balcony offers views of the San Gabriel Mountains to the north east of the city.
A kitchen sits at the centre of the plan and forms the corner of an open-plan living room, while three bedrooms and two bathrooms are positioned around the other side of the house.
A bridge connects the roof with the street, providing an entrance for both cars and pedestrians.
Starting with a vacant lot with a very steep down-slope from the street, the design of the house places the carport on the roof with the residence below. In addition to being a dramatic shift of expectations, it is also a logical response to the building code which requires parking for two vehicles.
This inversion moves the typical ground floor of the house up on the roof and makes the simple act of arriving home – and driving onto the roof of the house – a surprise every time. The roof is also usable as deck space and has unobstructed views of the San Gabriel Mountains, which are to the Northeast of Los Angeles.
Because of the steep terrain the house is designed to float over the hillside. This reduces the amount of foundation required and also means that the only way to access the house is over the bridge – so it is truly a floating structure.
The added benefit of providing the parking and the house as the same structure is to eliminate the need for additional foundations and walls for a garage.
Date of completion: August 2013 Location: Echo Park, Los Angeles, California Clients: Hal Ozsan/ Judson Williams Architect: Simon Storey/ Anonymous Architects, Los Angeles Lot Area: 8,477 sq.ft Building Area: 1,405 sq.ft Building footprint: 1,405 sq.ft – single level dwelling with roof deck/ parking. 3 bedroom & 2 bathrooms. Method of construction: Concrete pile foundation with concrete pilasters above grade; steel (primary floor structure – cantilevers); wood floor, walls and roof
Precast concrete lintels with oozing courses of grout create a distinct facade on this house near Brussels by Belgian studio And’rol (+ slideshow).
Named Wall House, the three-story family home is located near to a former stronghold, so And’rol designed a grey-brick facade with concrete lintels to reference the crumbling stone walls of the old fortress.
“The relief of the bulging grout reinforces its rough character,” said the architects.
A low wall surrounding the plot is constructed from the same materials, while the three remaining elevations of the house are clad with dark grey fibre-cement panels.
Square windows are scattered across all four elevations. Some are recessed, while others sit flush with the walls and some are screened behind horizontal concrete bars.
The house is located on the top of a steep hill and contains a split-level interior that negotiates a change in level across the site.
An asymmetric roof creates the necessary head height for the uppermost floor, which features a deep-set window facing out to the south.
The kitchen worktop is constructed from a stack of concrete slabs, referencing the building’s exterior. Other interior details include a wooden staircase with integrated seating, low-hanging pendant lights and a selection of brightly coloured furniture.
The plot’s particularities are on the one hand its perturbing position close to a steep rock slope, and on the other hand its small depth and its unusual longitudinal orientation parallel to the street.
Starting point for the young Belgian architects were traces of a nearby former stronghold. The main design element consists of an enclosing wall with a recessed rising part, to which the modest and sober main house nestles and adapts.
A second shallow volume that houses a large number of storage spaces is also located behind the wall.
The architects chose precast concrete lintels as a reinterpretation of the old fortress walls of rubble stone. The relief of the bulging grout reinforces its rough character.
Inside, a split-level organisation responds to the plot’s sloping ground, intensifies the open space concept and gives the compact building a generous and spacious character.
The used materials are deliberately kept simple and easy; the bare prestressed concrete slabs, the polished concrete flooring and the concrete bar refer to the enclosing wall.
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