This project is a great illustration of the kind of housing preferred by very wealthy people who are really tired of ostentatious luxury. As the architect Roman Leonidov recalls, the customer of this house formulated his wishes: “No piles, no excesses”. At the same time, there were no budget restrictions, by and large, the architects simply had to spend money on a simple and elegant solution that would provide future residents with maximum comfort and at the same time not distract from the main thing - contemplation of nature.
And there really is something to behold: for the construction of this house, the customer purchased a beautiful forested area. Tall pines growing on it create an almost impenetrable green screen that separates the site from the outside world better than any artificially built fence.
“The image of this house was formed almost immediately,” recalls Roman Leonidov. “The need to maximally reveal it to the surrounding landscape dictated the presence of huge windows, and the customer’s desire to have an extremely functional house prompted the idea of a one-story and very simple volume”. In fact, this is a parallelepiped placed on the site in such a way as to "catch" as many scenic views as possible. For the same purpose, Leonidov puts forward a living room cube from the main volume, and, on the contrary, slightly drowns the entrance area, due to which the plan is minimal, but still complicates. However, from a bird's eye view this can only be guessed at: the house is covered with a wide rectangular roof that hides all tectonic nuances.
The role of a roof with such developed overhangs is difficult to overestimate. Firstly, such a design allows you to protect the premises from excessive heat input in the summer and its loss in the winter. Secondly, the small angle of inclination helps to make the second light in those rooms where it is needed. And finally, due to the large overhangs in the immediate vicinity of the house, a barbecue area and parking for cars are organized. The solution of the latter captivates with its simplicity: cutting off the terrace, Leonidov brings a paving section under the continuing roof plane, flanking it from the reverse side with a row of thin round supports.
Naturally, the volume, simple in form, is extremely verified and laconic in the materials. It is quite predictable that wood plays the main role here - it is difficult to find another material that is equally organic to the natural environment. Leonidov uses a beam of two shades, assembling a supporting frame from a dark wide board, and folding piers from a thinner light board where transparent surfaces are inappropriate. The central public block of the building is also fixed with concrete panels, the brutal surface of which is perfectly set off by the light wooden frame. In addition to its constructive meaning, this addition also has a purely aesthetic one: the customer asked to emphasize its modern origin in the appearance of the cottage, and by introducing the main building material of the century here, Leonidov gives the “traditional wooden house” a new sound.
Along with wood, concrete is also present in the interior of the house. In particular, the fireplace in the living room and the kitchen area are decorated with it. And just as the house itself is a laconic horizontally oriented volume, so the main pieces of furniture here mainly develop horizontally, having strict and restrained forms, if not ascetic. “Only a few rooms of the house have a special faceting, otherwise it is natural, natural and not complicated by unnecessary details,” explains the author of the interior design Svetlana Fiantseva. One of such elaborate spaces is the living-dining area, where the muted natural shades of wood and concrete are "diluted" with bright color accents - light green, orange, deep green. As conceived by the authors, this gamut makes this house even more related to the surrounding landscape, "leading" the latter inside not only through large windows, but also through color.
In addition to a spacious living room combined with a dining room and a large kitchen, the house has two bedrooms, each of which has its own bathroom and dressing room. The architects spread these residential blocks along the two wings of the house, which makes them as isolated as possible from each other - not only the central core of the living room serves as a "buffer zone" here, but also the guest room and the entrance hall flanking it on both sides. Another bathroom is designed directly in the hallway, adjacent to the wet area of the kitchen on the back. “From the point of view of the rationality of planning, the advantages of a one-storey volume can hardly be overestimated,” says Svetlana Fiantseva. - the premises are arranged in such a way that the inhabitants of the house have the opportunity to retire and relax, even if a large company has gathered in another part of the cottage”.
This effect is further enhanced by a developed terrace. Created around the perimeter of the house, it emphasizes the connection between the building and the landscape and gives its inhabitants even more opportunities to actively spend time both inside and outside the cottage.
