HOUSE №2

One of our first projects was the vacation house for creative young couple (he is a writer, she is a photographer), who wanted to implement a simple, yet unusual idea within the limited budget. We faced a target to design the house where they could spend their weekends, and have far-away-from-city, inspiration-gaining, enjoying-the-nature breaks. They bought a small-sized plot of an irregular shape that perfectly suited our target: the outskirts of the forest, rather a convenient location in relation to transport routes, not far from the city.

The Customers have shared our views on architecture and trusted us in full, what happens not that frequently. It was decided to repulse from the pithy manner of projecting and a simple layout. We applied a principle of open spaces: no partition between the kitchen and living room. We also used a principle of functionally transformable areas (living room penetrates into bedroom, and kitchen into dining room) and they were located on main transit way of the house.

The oakwood nearby entered the first alterations to the original form and layout of the house (step 3 of the scheme shows the uniformal dialogue with the environment). The western wall of the house was projected to be blind, as the neighboring house is too close to the border of the area. To improve on the incoming sunlight we decided to increase the window embrasure at the south front face with slightly rising the roof (step 4 of the scheme). Thus the part of the roof got a slope and became more dynamic.

Shallow foundations and metal supporting framework reduce construction costs. The project considers the use of ecological materials. Oak boarding painted white is also applied for terrace finishing. Frame exterior boarding is carried out with lacquered ash tree.

Due to applying an open-plan and functionally transformable areas we managed to create a comfortable residential house of 77 m2 area (including 20 m2 terrace).

This project allowed our architectural studio to bring to life one of the ideas, namely the creation of compact, cost-efficient and ecofriendly housing with a rational design approach based on client’s initiative and individuality.

Technical and economical characteristics:

Plot area – 1,086 ha

Building footprint – 89,5m2

Total floor area – 57,7 m2

Living area – 34,1 m2

Number of floors – 1

Height – 3,75 m

Building volume – 286,4 m3

/ Max Voytenko, Roman Teryoshkin / 2011 /