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Architects: H.BD atelier
- Area: 400 m²
- Year: 2023
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Photographs:Pham Viet Anh
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Lead Architect: Pham Viet Anh
Text description provided by the architects. Quang Binh is known for its narrow and steep land, famous for Phong Nha Cave, Thien Duong Cave, and Son Doong Cave, etc, with a harsh climate, cold rainy season, and hot Lao windy dry season. The influence of climate and weather always impacts people's lifestyle and culture.
The house is located on the edge of Ba Don Town (North of Quang Binh) at T-junction - a crowded traffic intersection. The front of the road extends to the wholesale market; the back connects to the riverbank - where boats gather for trade by waterway. With the contextual characteristics and relatively small land area of 136 m2, the design offers a solution to leave the first floor empty, with open glass stretching along two sides of the street frontage, ensuring versatility for business activities. The family's living and working functions are pushed to the upper floors, including the 2nd floor with the bedrooms, kitchen - dining room, and living room. The 3rd floor is a shared living space, a small bedroom, and an altar room, and the attic is an open-air swimming pool overlooking the natural landscape outside.
The homeowner wants a house to live in and gather together after tiring working. The architect imagines the feeling of calm when entering a cave, the boundary between inside and outside gradually divided, where crowded streets and vehicles disappear, replaced by space, light, emotions, and family. By closing the outside and expanding the internal functions, distributing functions creates changes in area and volume according to the height of the house. The system of stairs is a transition point for traffic axes, helping to strengthen members' connections. It also aims to create an experience, a walk in a space with full of freedom. Each step is a different and unique view.
Private bedrooms are proposed with a minimum area to ensure that the shared living spaces are open, "empty," and interconnected so family members can connect and interact. , or share. Although each person has their interests and jobs, when they return, the shared space will always be a place to accommodate everyone and be open to each other.
Continuity - alternately closed on the 2nd and 3rd floors. The slanted roof system resembles mountain slopes, opening up a calm sky but ensuring separation from the bustle outside, creating privacy for the homeowner. A half-roof, half-open swimming pool extending to the West, the atmosphere and feeling it brings to users when swimming from inside to outside, relaxing after fatigue, opens up to a vast, floating and emotional sky. Leading up to the roof by a long staircase, the house is like an endless panoramic view of the surrounding area, enjoying the beautiful moments that nature brings.
With this project, the architect wants to create a series of feelings of experience, introversion, quietness, and privacy but still connected to nature, between internal and external factors, instead of separating and locking. The house becomes unique to the homeowner's personality and wishes.
