Architects: za bor architects / Arseniy Borisenko, Peter Zaytsev Location: Moscow Region, Russia Principal Use: recreation Engineer: za bor architects Project area: 43 sqm Project year: 2009 – 2010 Photographs: Peter Zaytsev
The project has been developed specially for popular TV show «Dachniy Otvet» (Eng: the village talks). The idea of the show is that for those owners of country houses and cottages, who agreed to participate in the experiment, the invited designers or architects do re-planning of a part of their cottage. The important moment is that the house owners pay nothing for reconstruction, but at the same time they can’t influence the result, so it comes always unexpected for them. The architects in their turn try to offer the most original solutions.
In this case the object is an ordinary two-storey house made of brick, with a mansard. It has an attached basement on which its owners, a family of university teachers with three young sons, planned to make a covered terrace.
za bor architects offered to create a large optimistic space from light yet very strong polycarbonate tightened by colored films and placed on a skeleton made of steel and aluminum profile.
The transparency of a summer terrace should, according to the plan, promote the dialogue of people and the surrounding nature, and bright colours should be similar to the intense shades of garden leaves, varying from green in summer to yellow and red in autumn. In general the use of colored stained-glass windows has always corresponded to the spirit of summer residences situated near Moscow so it is possible to consider this technique a tribute to the old traditions.
The active colour of the brick facade has been «extinguished»: painted in neutral gray – to favourably single out the terrace volume. In the house there has been cut a door (by expanding one of the windows); the available balcony has been altered: polycarbonate toned by a colored film was used as its fencing.
In order to be able to effortlessly organize barbecue and buffet tables on the summer terrace, at its entrance there was placed a large bar counter made from cedar (the floor is laid with larch boards). The table and chairs are the only furniture on the place; they can be disassembled and taken in to free some space, for example, for dancing. Floor area: 43 sq. meters.
