Description

This house on its narrow plot concentrates its orientation entirely on the adjacent broad expanse of water and the intense presence of nature. This means that two contrasting façades are offered: the entrance side of the cubic basic form remains closed and block-like. The only ‘notch’ taken out of it is a two-storey light-well with tree as the main entrance, complemented at the side by a substantial staircase cylinder. On the other side from this, the façade on the water side dissolves across the full width of the building into door-high glazing on two floors, the staircase opens up and changes from a solid into a wall. The dominant feature here is the attractive view, and so the living area, which extends across the full breadth, is placed on the top floor.

The basic theme remains the abstract cube, oriented almost exclusively to the water and framing the view on both floors: a prismatic solid with geometrical contours whose subtle dynamic points to the water and prescribes a kind of ‘direction for living’. Layers of nature scenery become components of life in the house as a fourth wall without clearly discernible boundaries. As the climate is consistently warm, an entrance passage by the light-well and a balcony with a large rain shade on the water and garden side are also part of the living space and form transitional zones from the interior to the external cyclorama space.

Bedrooms with attached bathrooms share the ground floor with the kitchen. This unusual allocation of space thus leaves guests the cooler level below at night. It is possible to get to the roof terrace via an external staircase without going through the living area on the top floor. Both the vertical ‘notch’ on the entrance side and the horizontal window wall facing the water admit the expansive view as an almost boundless living space.

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Originally published in: Klaus-Peter Gast, Living Plans: New Concepts for Advanced Housing, Birkhäuser, 2005.