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K & M House

K & M House

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K & M House

Firm

Raed Abillama Architects

Type

Residential › Private House

YEAR

2003

The house
consists of a roof, attic, reception floor, bedroom floor, parking/pool deck
floor and a multipurpose hall floor. The program encompasses an Entrance, Main
reception hall, Secondary reception hall, dining hall, Main kitchen, Breakfast
Room, Reception, Terrace, Master Bedroom, Master bedroom Office, Master bedroom
Living, Master bedroom Porch, Guest Bedroom, Boy’s bedroom, Two girl’s
bedrooms, Two kitchenettes, 10 bathrooms, Indoor Parking, Pool, Annex and a
multi-purpose hall. The original house was essentially a single story central
hall house with the main hall oriented along the north south axis. It consisted
of four rooms and a main central hall with the back half placed on bedrock and
the front placed on a barrel vault used for storage. A later expansion of the
house involved the addition of a front porch with five arches as its façade and
an expansion of the east façade about one and a half meters eastward. Another
floor was added on top of the old house. The east rooms of the top floor were
wider than the west rooms. The addition of a top floor was somewhat whimsical
and disregarded massing issues. The result was a floor, which was square in
proportion. However, several missing rooms on the southeast corner prevented it
from being a full square plan. The Main façade (North Façade), though
asymmetrical, retains its central hall triple arch vernacular. The civil war
inflicted considerable damage to the house and the original timber roof was
damaged beyond recuperation. A mortar shell buckling half of the west façade
hit the southwest corner of the house. The original house was made up of soft
limestone quarried from its own site. It was covered with plaster as it
obviously had water leakage problems.

In the first
phase of the construction, a decision was taken to retain all structurally
sound walls and to apply reinforced concrete jacketing on the interior faces.
In the southwest corner a vertical circulation core was added as no vertical
circulation existed initially and this location was the most technically
feasible. After the analysis of the program and site, it was decided that a
block of similar size to the old could be added. This new block was to be
treated as a new building with its own dynamics, however, it was to be subtle
enough so as not to overpower the iconic image of the old building nor disrupt
the harmony of the project as a whole.

The family
to be housed consists of the parents, two girls and a boy. The children’s rooms
are located in the more massive additional block and the zone in direct contact
with the old is de-materialized creating a living room space, which expands to
the outside along the North south axis. The living space extends in both
directions into an interiorized courtyard and a front porch area through two
corresponding circulation galleries. The context in turn is filtered into the
living space heart by a gradation between inside and outside. The boundaries
between inside and outside are hence blurred. The subdivisions of the façade
also continue inward and the finishing enhances this gradation. The boy’s room
reflects the extroverted nature extending onto the courtyard. The girl’s rooms
are placed symmetrically to each other creating a more intimate relationship
between the two. Both are buffered from the main common spaces creating a more
intimate privatized zone. In the living room the idea of the central hall of
the original house is given a different edge. The central circulation zone
resulting from the specialized usage of the space is mapped onto the façade in
the triple arch. The middle arch acts as the door giving access to the outside.
In the new block the circulation patterns are better reflected in a module that
creates four bays -- contrasting with the three bays and five bays of the old
block. The spatial modulation is carried over to the rest of the facades and in
the interior space and floor finishing.
In the old block the highest vantage point is given to the main
reception halls and dining spaces. The master bedroom and the guest bedroom are
both placed in the old block on the bedroom floor. The modulation in the new
block carries over into the old block in the floor finishing as well as in some
intrusions of the ceiling system. This latter enhances the reading of the
building as a whole and carries the dialogue from the exterior to the interior.

Photographs
by: © Joe Kesrouani

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