Maison UT is a semi-detached villa located in an urban area. Our project aims to design a green, modern house to meet the needs of a family of six people, including a married couple, their two children, their elderly mother, and a serving-maid while following the strict planning rules in the area. An eco-friendly solution is what we are looking at for the intervention of the building.
The first and foremost difficulty our team has to face is ensuring the renovation is in line with the planning regulations and exterior requirements applied in the urban area while satisfying the client's need for changing the existed construct t to a more engaging space for family bonding. With the original plans of the house, two main problems need to be attended. The first problem is that the existed structure is being used repeatedly for houses in this area, which is unappealing to the eyes and lacks personality. The second problem is that the typical layout of the existing house's plan is unwelcome and doesn't have the openness in a villa's character.
The intervention must be carefully considered to create a unique, personalized facade and subtly contrast with the surrounding area without violating the renovating guideline. All the pre-existing decorative moldings were removed and replaced with geometrical elements to give the facade a more modern and more straightforward architectural language. The use of vertical timbers as a louver covering the facade of the house adds to its unique look. It provides the house with more privacy but doesn't block the view from inside to the outside street. This louver also avoids sunlight to penetrate the internal space directly and even creates playful natural lighting arrangements inside the house.
Second, it's essential to create an open home that integrates the living space with the greens. We create a single uninterrupted space, both vertical and horizontal, to maximize the view of the garden surrounding the house.
Third, an efficient design layout for the second floor was designed to revolve around the idea of providing more interaction between family members and ensuring privacy. Instead of having a walk-in closet inside the master bedroom, we decided to move it outside to connect the parents' bedroom and the children's bedroom. By sharing the closet, we hope to improve communication between parents and children. Also, to fulfill the wish to have a playroom for the children, which can be accessed easily from their bedroom, we decided to transform the kids' space into a split-level room. Their sleeping area can be reached by a small steel staircase within their room. The layout of the room allows the children to be more active and stimulating their imagination.
Last but not least, every bedroom in this house was thoughtfully designed according to sun study and ventilation factors. One of the strongest aspects of this project is to provide each of these rooms with its own green space (private garden). These gardens can easily access through sliding glass doors, which minimize the boundary between inside and outside of the house.