Description

A splendid plot in the city but with a lake view and facing south were the attractive conditions offered to Vincent James and his colleagues when planning this house. High walls protect it from neighbours at the sides, but it is wide open to the lake; the house has two distinct outside areas. On the city side, there is a long drive with differently designed green areas with works of art and a landscape garden on the lake side. As an L-shaped figure, the building has clear external outlines, but on one side it grows into the topography with the garage. On the ground floor, the plan breaks down into an entrance axis to the almost detached, pavilion-like living area and the cooking and dining zone, and an adjacent apartment with attached garage.

The prominent position of the living area as a link between the outdoor spaces is of course justified by the view. Room-high sliding windows can be opened across the corner, so that the landscape impinges on home life to the largest possible extent. James has invented an exciting hybrid relation of functions by creating this isolated living pavilion: living is essentially allotted to the outdoor area, and in summer it really is wide open, but in terms of the body of the building it is clearly part of the figure in its entirety. ‘Vantage point’ living in an open green space, but also a response to an urban space are skilfully intertwined.

On the top floor above the living room is the bedroom area with bathroom and dressing zone, a guest room with bathroom and the bedrooms for the separate apartment. The form of the building draws its reticent formal language from the repertoire of classical Modernism, and draws its timeless character from the use of long-lived exterior materials like sandstone and wood.

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