Vera Butko recalls that it all started back in 2004, when the future customer invited Atrium to participate in a closed competition for the project of his country house. The only request, in addition to modern architecture, was the inclusion of a courtyard and several terraces in the living space. It was from him that this unusual house was born, formed by a single plane folded several times. It is amazing that the customer not only agreed, but also built the cottage exactly as he saw it in the very first sketches of the architects.
The plot on which the house is built is notable for its very active relief. Unlike most of the neighboring estates, whose landscape is flat in nature, it is a high hill overgrown with pine trees. This elevation made it possible to place the house in the most advantageous way, and the pines created the necessary "screen" to help avoid direct visual contact with neighbors. Accordingly, the architects were able to maximally reveal the dwelling towards nature and the sun: three of the four facades have huge windows of very different geometries.
Geometry generally defines the essence of the architectural concept of this house. The plane of the roof falls at an acute angle, bends (one, two!), Turning into a floor, slides at a short distance from the ground along the stylobate hidden in the hill and again rises to a whole floor, and finally turns inside the house, which gives its section a distinct resemblance to the letter G, only drawn with straight lines. The architects divided the resulting volume into three parts and pushed the central one back: thanks to this, the house had a niche for the courtyard, which the customer had dreamed of so much, and the volume that “moved out” from the back side was ideal for placing a garage.
A double-height space with an open staircase faces the courtyard niche from the side of the house, a fireplace is also brought here - for the convenience of year-round operation, the architects made it two-sided. “In fact, this house is designed as a set of cubes,” says Vera Butko, “and they are stacked in a different order to fill the large white folded structure formed by the roof. Moreover, each "cube" is represented by its own material - glass, wood or light beige max-panels - and is a separate functional area. In one case it is the master's bedroom, in the other children's rooms”.
The architects did not forget about the customer's wish to have many terraces, different in size and purpose: almost every room has its own balconies, and developed roof consoles reliably protect them from precipitation and summer sun. Another large open terrace in the shape of a polygon is located in front of the house and is actually the roof of the second volume, which, as already mentioned, is partially dug into the hill. At first it was conceived as a guest house, but in the end it turned into a bathhouse. It should be noted that its roof behaves much quieter, but on the whole, house number two supports and develops the general architectural concept: there are also walls with a reverse slope, tectonic shifts of the cantilevers and a combination of glass, wood and max-panels. The stylistic unity of the complex is also supported by a separate office space with a carport.
“Looking at this house today, you might not notice all the progressive technological methods that we used. Today, some of them have already become widely used, says Vera Butko. - But when we designed it seven years ago, many things seemed almost impossible, and every little thing had to be thought out from scratch. What is even a glued glass corner with a reverse slope - then everyone told us that this was impossible, but now it is almost a common thing! We are also very proud of the fact that we were then able to convince the customer to involve a facade company in the implementation of the project, and not to combine materials right at the construction site. Again, now almost everyone does this, and in 2004 we were among the first who decided to entrust the facades of a private country house to professionals."
And yet the authors of the project are modest: even seven years later, this extraordinary house makes a very strong impression. With its dynamic fold shape and dazzling white color, it looks more like origami or an architectural model that miraculously moved from the workshop to the top of the hill.
