Mermaid house

The inspiration for the design of this house near Kiev became through our thoughts on “functional minimalism”. We love pure minimalistic spaces very much, but we want to leave a place to a person in them.

We were guided by several fundamental principles: 

– Maximum rational use of the territory
– Lack of irregular facade in the struggle to minimize the area of ​​enclosing structures
– Flowing of external space into the internal
– Clear logic of horizontal and vertical connections in the interior
– Compliance with the principles of insolation

Each planning is a scenario that we lay out on the basis of the initial data and information about the site. The main entrance to the site is located on the north side. On the first floor, all rooms are oriented to the north, not needing a large amount of sunlight – a technical room, a dressing room and a guest bathroom. The main room, where the kitchen, dining and living areas are located, has a favorable orientation to 3 directions of the world – east, southeast and southwest. From the zenith sun and overheating the house is protected by a terrace with pergola and a tree, which we decided to leave on the site and cut a “window” for it in the ceiling, which, together with the water surface of the pool, creates a microclimate on the south side. 

We tried to use all the energies to the maximum, “make” the house live by the sun, surround it with water energy, add staticity to the image by using the texture of concrete and stone, enter it into the environment using wood in the decoration, fill it with air energy due to panoramic glazing and double-light spaces, tame the energy of fire by placing a fireplace in the very heart of the living room, the fire of which can be observed from anywhere in the first floor. 
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To create the effect of “lightness”, we also deliberately performed the overhang of the roof “stepwise”, further highlighting it and tearing off the casing of the columns from the supporting element.

Just imagine how you descend in the morning from the second floor upstairs with a view of a continuous panoramic glass window into two floors, which opens up the view of the dawn sun, you go down to the first floor and brew your first cup of coffee overlooking the garden. You have a couple of hours of silence, which you spend in your own office with direct access to the terrace. Or in your own small gymnasium flooded with the morning sun. Or swimming in the pool and doing yoga in the courtyard in the shade of the pines.

To create the effect of “lightness”, we also deliberately performed the overhang of the roof “stepwise”, further highlighting it and tearing off the casing of the columns from the supporting element.
We got an image of a house that has the character of a person. He thinks about many things and the subject of his thoughts is not always simple. He is lively and easily accepts everything that fate gives him. His image is grounded, but light and airy, strict and at the same time friendly.