Looking down from the Ješt?d Ridge onto the Bohemian Paradise, atelier SAD and interior designer Iveta Zachariášová, designed a house that integrates the interior into the surrounding landscape. Alternating vertical strips of Portuguese expanded cork boards of variable thickness form a first-of-its-kind structured façade in the Czech Republic. Discover more after the jump.
From the architects: The family house at Rašovka is located on the southern slope of the Ješt?d ridge, at an altitude of 600 m above sea level, with a wonderful view of the scenery of the Bohemian Paradise.
The view and the integration of the interior spaces into the landscape was one of the main motifs driving the house design process. The landscape is open, passable, dominated by flowering, unfenced meadows. The floor plan of the rectangular house of approximately 22.5 x 7 m is oriented along the contour line. Along the northern side of the property, there is a road on top of an embankment to which the house had to be connected. A part of the building’s roof is therefore drive-on, intended for parking vehicles. The ground floor and the main area of the garden are then 4.5 m below road level. A greater part of the building is covered by a saddle roof with a variable pitch ranging from 43° to 30° on the eastern gable. The slender mass of the house cuts diagonally into the steep slope of the road, and the ridge seems to slope down into the garden.
The main entrance is on the west side. Access is through an outdoor staircase along a stone wall overgrown with creepers. The otherwise compact mass of the house is completely open on the eastern gable, and its fully glazed wall steps back from the contour edge at an angle. This maximizes the area of view and creates a roofed terrace. The terrace adjoins the south side, where there is another aperture in the mass of the house spanning the full height of the floor. The glazing meets with the glazing of the east gable at two thirds of the aperture, without a corner column. The corner is formed by sliding portals which can be slid open, whereby the main living space becomes fully connected with the garden through the terrace. All the other living spaces on the ground floor, including the bathroom, also open to the landscape through glazed apertures on the south side.
The structured façade consists of boards from Portuguese expanded cork of variable thickness, which alternate in vertical strips. This material has never been used in this way in the Czech Republic until now. The saddle roof is made of folded anthracite-colored, aluminium sheet. The ceilings and perimeter walls were cast from fair-face reinforced concrete, the internal partitions are plastered brick. The roof soffit is lined with bleached birch plywood, a French swivel cast-iron fireplace is suspended from the rafters, being the dominant feature of the interior. The overall simple look of the house is completed by a dark brown-red screed floor. The outdoor pavement is made of old, well-worn, large granite stones. They resemble the original Liberec paving with its specific pink colour. Similarly, the whole of Liberec was once generously paved. This is how the entire project was gradually born – with respect for local traditions, history, materials and the surroundings.
The investors tell the story of the house as follows: “It all started with the discovery of the last building plot in Rašovka seven years ago. We already knew the place and since we wanted to build as high as possible in the direction of Ješt?d mountain, we did not hesitate at all. We have had a lot of other elements in mind for a long time: glass walls, exposed concrete, an austere interior, metal elements, a suspended fireplace, or an open garden without a fence. Friends from the SAD studio shaped Iveta’s original ideas into the design of the house. As the idea of the house was born, we gradually understood that we simply could not make any compromises. That is why the house is faced with cork and there is no column in the glass corner, despite statics and logic. A company with the thematically stylish name Ješt?dská stavební spole?nost (Ješt?d /mountain/ construction company) undertook the demanding construction, discovered a layer of black coal under the house, and eventually everything went well with the laying of the last granite stone in the pavement.”
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“The interior design of the house with the internal layout of the rooms may have been created earlier than the house itself,” says Iveta Zachariášová, interior designer and co-author of the entire project, especially of the interior. “Thanks to my many years of experience, many things and functional aspects were clear to me from the onset, and we basically only dealt with their alignment with the structure of the house and the opening of the house to the surrounding environment through glass walls. The light, the space, the cleanliness of the interior and the moderate use of colors led me primarily to the Konsepti and Ligne Roset studios, which are the foundation of the interior furnishings.”
Studio atelier SAD [architecture] – www.ateliersad.cz
Iveta Zachariášová [interior design] – www.ivetazachariasova.cz
Author Adam Jirkal, Tomáš Kubák [atelier SAD], Iveta Zachariášová
Project location: Na Rašovce 70, 463 12 Šimonovice
Project country: Czech Republic
Project year: 2016–2019
Completion year: 2020
Built-up Area: 158 m²
Gross Floor Area: 153 m²
Plot size: 1685 m²
Dimensions: 22,4 × 7,1 m / 640 m3
Client: Iveta and Jan Zachariáš
Photographer: BoysPlayNice – www.boysplaynice.com
Collaborator Construction: Ješt?dská stavební spole?nost
Landscape architect: Partero
Interior construction: MY76
