The house resembles a giant butterfly, spreading its wings at the edge of the forest, in thought - whether to fly away now, or still bask in the sun. The effect of movement of the regularly folding wings is created by the lines of the roof, the gentle slopes of which cut through each other, like fingers linked into a "lock" - a line that went down continues up and vice versa. From this, the pattern of the roof, inspired, according to Nikolai Lyzlov, by the wooden houses of the Russian north, loses some sleepiness inherent in prototypes, turning to the dynamics - on the one hand, the roof, as expected, looks gable, on the other, its edges rise like the corners of the lips, feigning a smile.
In fact, says Nikolai Lyzlov, designing a cottage for a workshop is the exception rather than the rule. The project arose because the client and the architect have a long friendship and a common understanding of the task, in other words, the client is not such as to demand a "man-eater's castle … not a man-eater".
The village chosen for the construction also turned out to be very successful. This is a beautiful place, where "… you can look in all directions and not see anything terrible … see only the sky, forest and green grass." Around the forest - like a park, half a Christmas tree, poloivna - smooth slender pines. Even the soil here turned out to be almost perfect, consisting of only sand. The organizers not only chose a good location, but also proposed a thoughtful layout of the village, which looks like a small town, packed in the center and dissolving into a forest at the edges. Moreover, the conditions are stipulated so that it is not profitable to buy a large plot and resell it by cutting it into pieces, land on a large plot is more expensive - which excludes possible speculations and guarantees the safety of the conceived device.
The site for which Lyzlov's project is intended is one of the largest, and two-thirds of it goes into the forest. The house is low, spread out on the ground, set at an angle, echoing the intersection of streets. One wing is an economic one, which the architects jokingly call the "coach house". One of its walls overlooks the line, the streets, taking on the role of the fence. The main, residential part of the house slightly recedes from the road, and an imposing "front" courtyard is formed in front of it. On the other side of the house, as was customary in estates, there is a private courtyard hidden from view, smoothly turning into the forest. There are more windows on this side, the house is generally open towards the forest - the glass wall of the pool and floor-to-ceiling windows of the living rooms: each living space has a window to the forest.
According to Nikolai Lyzlov, the house turned out to be very traditional. The main part of the rooms is lined up in a suite, and the layout resembles a manor plan with a "rest", that is, the letter P, truncated into one utility wing. Indeed, even for a "house in the country" conservatism is rather a virtue; here the typology has evolved over the centuries and it is difficult to add something completely radical without harming the inhabitant.
However, here we are faced with a tradition in a very light, airy, transparent embodiment - so to speak, the LIGHT tradition. Unlike classic "palaces", this house freely "spreads" on the ground, it is open to the surrounding space, and even equipped with roof-wings, right now it will sit, rest, and even take off.
