This 170 m² hybrid barn house on a narrow piece of land dialogues in harmony and in contrast with the traditional surroundings.

Once upon a time in Audierne, in Britanny, lived a local fisherman nicknamed “Sentinel”. He observed the sea from the hills towering the village harbor. One century later, his descendants bought a piece of land in Audierne, up on a hill and facing the same ocean horizon their ancestor used to gaze at.

The project is located on a narrow and irregular piece of land, at the edge of a block and at the entrance of the village. Considering the peculiarity of this location, a traditional compact house would have had a strong impact on the surrounding landscape. Therefore, the architect chose to split the house into three volumes, each one being parallel to one edge of the plot of land. The main house, a barn house-like wooden structure, is situated below while two lower blocks occupy the upper part of the land.

The three-slope roof and the different levels optimize spaces while minimizing the size of the building, providing a view on the ocean with a minimal impact on the surrounding landscape.

More than being a mere reinterpretation of the local traditional barn house, this project is an answer to a very particular and irregular piece of land, and to a very specific urban tissue with a wide range of architectural typologies. The project is dynamic, and its perspectives are consistently changing. Seen from its South side, the house echoes with the traditional barn houses, while from the North side, it shows very contemporary lines.

The different materials composing the house are echoing with the diversity of the surrounding colors and elements: western red cedar cladding, mixed slate/zinc roofing, white wall coating and black stained wood.

The functional layout is based on bioclimatic design principles and site conditions: the car park at North side creates an acoustic and climatic screen, the main spaces face the ocean towards South, while the bedrooms face the East.

A skylight is located in the middle of the house bringing natural light to most of the space, and steel mesh along the stairs creates a transparency that keeps changing together with the motion of the clouds above.

This very specific steel mesh is used by local fishermen to catch local seashells.

The wood structure – visible from the inside – was digitally prefabricated in order to get complete control over the construction process.

Aurelien Chen

The post Sentinel House was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

Built for a family of five in a small plot, at the south of a complex of multifamily housing buildings, the house is located in Restelo, near Belém. The neighborhood comprises single-family houses disposed in an amphitheater shape towards the Tagus river. The site is on the north limit of this set, in the transitional area between the two-storey housing and multifamily buildings with 4 floors.

The south facade of the house is the “face” of the long housing block; a monolith in exposed concrete that develops on four floors, seeking to establish different relationships with the water tank, the garden, and the view towards the river.

A conventional program for a large family is spread over all four floors. The ground floors accommodate the social areas, and the last two floors are reserved for the private areas. The ground floor is recessed from the main body of the house, creating a garden. This floor contains a family room, guest bedroom, storage, technical areas, and laundry. The entrance floor, where the living room and kitchen are located, uses a generous balcony that opens upon the garden and the water tank. The first floor contains the 3 children’s bedrooms organized around a patio, a gathering space. The top floor contains the bedroom and other spaces for the parents, ending on a generous balcony, a belvedere looking towards the river.

Pedro Domingos Arquitectos

The post House in Restelo was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

The house has a square layout, demarcated by a wall than encloses all indoor spaces and their adjacent four gardens. Historical travel records of Nicosia, dating as far back as the 14^th century, mention the garden as a space protected inside a walled enclosure, containing ornamental and edible plants, offering scents and sounds; the garden has been a contributing factor to the historical identity of Nicosia, at times including cisterns, fountains, open-air kitchens, wells, or steam baths. The gardens of the house, adjoining different programmatic units, cater to daily, practical necessities, such as the control of sunlight, temperature, and air flow. Special attention has been put on the passive heating and cooling of the house. The construction materials are selected from local light industries; some are left exposed, while part of the finishing is carried out on site, as is the case for the flooring. All case furniture and some moveable pieces are custom-designed by the architects, while the rest are hand-made from local artisans in Nicosia.

Draftworks Architects

The post Best of 2020: Four Gardens was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

In contrast to many urban homes that remain hidden behind high walls and green fences, the “house-garden” is an extension of its adjacent green public space, and part of the urban fabric. The connection between house, public space, and neighborhood allows all three elements to be perceived as a compact whole, in perpetual interaction. The principal design concept was the development of gardens, both on the ground level as well as on the floor, as an accessible green roof. The two-storey home is articulated in two monolithic volumes, containing a green patio. The ground level accommodates the shared spaces, and the floor houses two bedrooms. On the top level, facades are formed in sliding aluminum panels for sound insulation, controlled light, and protection from solar radiation during the summer months. Sustainable design relies on discreet solar paneling, on the chimney effect through the green internal patio, and natural ventilation through the north-south axis. The project has been awarded with the Cyprus State Prize for Architecture, 2019.

Christos Pavlou

The post Best of 2020: The House-garden in the City was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

The house is designed for a young couple (Belen, co-author of this project, and Martin) who are looking forward to growing their family together. The decision was to work out a house of three bedrooms, a kitchen and dining room that integrate with the social spaces, a wide semi-covered area that holds the grill, a fireplace inside the social area, a swimming pool, a semi-covered space to keep two cars, the main bedroom, en-suite with a dressing room, and the second and third bedrooms that share the bathroom.

From the beginning it was important to prioritize the connections between spaces, to enhance social life and gathering activities. Regarding the esthetic requirements, the couple was interested in the use of bare concrete combined with black-color elements for the exterior and common spaces, whilst for the bedrooms they were looking for a more traditional profile, with plastered walls and wooden floors.

The project strategy consisted of breaking down the volume of the house, in a way that none of the façades would express the total height of the building, to avoid showing a robust object. The proportions of a two-story building inside a short plot could cause the perception of a bulky and heavy volume. This fragmentation was achieved with the distribution of the mass, alternating the filled (covered) and void (semi-covered) spaces. This avoids a compact look from the outside and instead creates an effect of permeability.

Τhe ground floor would host little covered surface, so it was laid out in such a way that it became visually open and free, with a predominant volume above it (the upper floor), which rises over the plot as a clean element standing on four concrete feet. Under the shadow of this floating prism is where all social activities of the house take place. The visual strategy consists on hiding the impact of the ground floor from the outside, that means the entrance, social area, and laundry room. To camouflage these areas, dark grey was used on all the ground floor partitions, except for the four concrete feet that hold the upper volume. Furthermore, the solid areas are visually hidden from the front by pulling back the entrance volume and the laundry room, positioning them behind a free semi-covered space for the car entrance. Then, a deep courtyard enlarges the distance between the social area and the street, turning it almost imperceptible. On one side of the courtyard stands the glass volume that holds the staircase and main entrance (in grey color on the front side). On the other side of the courtyard stands the grill area, which is separated and sheltered from the street by the volume that holds the laundry room, also in a dark grey color.

Towards the rear of the plot, the volume that holds the social area of the house faces the garden and the swimming pool. Inside, to the left side is the living room, which relates to the main entrance; to the right, the kitchen and dining room are connected to the semi-covered space of the grill area. Both living room and kitchen-dining-room areas are integrated and divided at the same time, due to a hanging sculptural element in bare concrete that works as the space for both the television and the fireplace, becoming the heart of the gathering area of the house.

Since there was not much vegetation compared to the built surface, and the intention was to generate an atmosphere that enhanced the contact with nature, the social area are positioned in direct relation with the garden and a large courtyard occupies the center, structuring the floor plan and allowing the alternation between open and closed spaces. In this way, the exterior becomes present in every space in a controlled manner, still encouraging the feeling of shelter.

The top floor is approached through a double-height space that faces the courtyard through a full-height glazing. The two secondary bedrooms face towards the front of the house, while the corridor that connects them incorporates an integrated desk, which faces both the internal courtyard and the backyard. The main bedroom is positioned to the right of the courtyard and concludes in a large terrace that fits into the entire width of the plot. The pergola acts both as a shelter from the sunlight and it visually completes the floating volume, to make it look as a compact element.

The courtyard brings light and wideness to all the spaces, and the vegetation will give privacy and contribute to climate regulation once it is fully developed.

Ekaterina Künzel, María Belén García Bottazzini

Daniela Mac Adden

The post Castaños House was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

In the Cotswolds, Bureau de Change have reinterpreted the rural vernacular to create a new home using interlocking barn forms and a palette of local materials.

Billy Mavropoulos, Co-Founder of Bureau de Change, explains how the design drew on traces of the site’s former use: ‘We took the elongated forms of two 30 metre-long, timber chicken sheds as the starting point for the new design. The house then became a play of traditional barn volumes which have been pushed and pulled to suit the needs of the client.

The front volume has been cut into to create an internal patio, hidden behind the elevation. The black volume is extruded to double height, creating a point of interest where the two barns interlock and are pushed into one another. A building within a building allows the far end of the front barn to house a studio for the artist owner, and a part of the second volume has been broken off to form an annex adjacent to the main house.

Inside, the key living spaces fan out around the patio, which acts as a focal point for the home. Clad in glazed ceramic tiles, the patio is a moment where both nature and light are introduced.

Materially, the house echoes much of Bureau de Change’s work in its attention to craft and detail. In this case, paying close attention to local historic building practices and approaches to material have played an important role in generating a language which both interprets and reinvents the vernacular. In addition, the construction meets passive house principles – with an insulated concrete formwork system creating a thermal envelope, limited openings on the south-facing façade, triple glazed window units and a heat recovery ventilation system to maintain air quality year-round.

Co-Founder Katerina Dionysopoulou explains: ‘The front barn has been built in dry stone wall by a local craftsman, chosen not only for its local relevance but for its inherent qualities of mass and muscularity. This façade is monolithic, with fewer openings to produce a heavier, solid volume at the front. As a counterpoint, the taller barn at the back is clad in a lighter-weight natural larch which has been charred to a deep leathery black at each window recess. This charring has then been brushed away to gently blend it into the natural larch – creating an ombré effect which emphasizes the rhythmic push and pull of the window indentations.’

This sensitive material treatment deconstructs the expansive façade, adding texture and interest -a principle echoed in the indentation of the stone walling at the front entrance. In both material choices, the studio have envisaged a slow process of weathering and age that will further embed the new home into its rural setting.

Bureau de Change Architects

The post LONG HOUSE was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.