Fairytale contemporary house situated in the middle of the calm and harmony of nature

Architects: arches
Location: Vilnius, Lithuania
Year: 2016
Area: 4.467 ft²/ 415 m²
Photo courtesy: Norbert Tukaj
Description:

“Just a few hundred meters from the active city street and you can find yourself in exclusive surrounding of the park. Calm and harmony of nature. This sensation is enhanced by natural valley, the old Raguva. Sunny slope of the valley. Outskirts. Place of the former wooden farmstead. Regional park territory. Regulated architectural solution. Territory limitations for architectural expression and clients vision to live in contemporary house – these were starting points.

The object is located in the sunny part of the slope next to the outskirts. It is designed in the former farmsteda place. Existing slope and all valuable trees in the site are preserved. The idea of the building is to ,,hang“ it over the valley and open it to the valley by continues windows. The ground floor is partly hidden in the slope. Due to black shale finish the ground floor disappears in otskirt shadow.

Only the first floor volume, finshe wit natural wood, is exibited . Laconic, sculptural form of volumes interprets the silhouette of traditional sloped house. Divided volume, varying forms forms, humane proportions, glass and wood harmony creates the impression of lightness. Interior spaces follows forms of the volume. Integral natural wood finish of the facades and roof creates impression of form solidity. The volume with its materials and coloring flourishes in forest and valley background. By dividing the volume, micro-spaces – courtyards are created. This is the building in nature. Therefore all main interior spaces have entrances into exterior spaces- courtyards.

Courtyards are arranged in different levels, creating sensation of wholeness and privacy, enables to enjoy both morning and evening sun. The hanging volume of the first floor naturally creates the terrace. Windows of the ground floor are partly covered with the vertical wooden lamelles, they serve as protection from overheat and becomes a part of the interior. Suroundings are planted with grass, the path to the enrance is of granite tiles in order to minimize the intervention to the nature. The plot is surounded with the open work fence.

For building facades exclusively natural finishing materials were selected. The main finishing material is pine wood manufactured by ,,Kebony“ technology. Pine was selected as typical tree for the surrounding. Using unique ,,Kebony“ technology wood becomes particularly resistant, stable, durable and there is no need for any additional maintenance. It is ecological product and this becomes important factor in regional park territory. Within time, pine wood grays ant fits the environment even more by fading in pine trunk background.

Because of the exclusive qualities of ,,Kebony“ technology, manufactured wood allowed to create visually solid volumes. Finish is applied not only for the facades but also for varying geometry of roof planes, visible from the slope. The wood is attached to stainless steel profiles system within self-fixate plastic holders. The accurate wood geometry allowed to combine wooden finish planes, form vertical wooden blinds by creating accurate graphics. The graphics is continued by natural shale finish.

Black ,,Rathscheck“ shale is used for finish of the lower parts of the volume. Shale finish is also attached to stainless steel profile system fixing with fixating glues in vertical stripes. The graphical expression is enhanced by metal railing stripes fixed above the shale contunueing its vertical division. Different materials, different elements supplement each other fulfilling the facade graphical expression. It is all about the graphical interpretation of park trees trunks.

The other reason for choosing natural wood as the main finishing material of the volume is the aim to interpret Lithuanian traditional wooden house. The main characteristics of Lithuanian traditional houses are laconic volume, double pitched roof, wooden blinds, wooden finishing and granite rocks foundation. Considering that the project site is in regional park territory, the idea was to remind qualities of traditional farmstead house by interpreting it in a contemporary way.”