The project is a weekend home for a family that loves to have guests over and also continues a close relationship to a farming culture.
A small family home existed here when we first visited site and the existing contour of the place was such that the old house was sitting amidst the rest of the farm that had been raised over the years… so literally, inside a 2 meter deep pit. And then there was a part of the land that was difficult to access because it was connected through a rather steep drop.
So our first instincts were those of landscape… how does one let the built form become a generator and connector of these different landscapes within the site. The pit and the cliff were negotiated into a gentler slope, and the geometry of the plan arose out of these relationships we wanted to construct within the site.
The house is essentially an expansive roof volume. The walls move in and out of this volume to create smaller zones of privacy within the smaller configuration of the house, and at the scale of the site.
The pool and the adjoining wall create an entrance zone that also serves as an extended parking when the larger circle of the family get together, and simultaneously it forms the more private family garden with the older mango trees and the pool.
The angular disposition of the mass creates a more intimate farm yard towards the kitchen side of the house as the convex faces open up to more celebratory aspects.
Within the house its again this angularity that brings about a certain degree of privacy for one of the bedrooms. Whereas the main bedroom is made very much a part of the living space, with a possibility of segregation of course… but we always imagined the grandchildren running amok in this rather intimate living space… that extends seamlessly from the bedroom through the living room and the veranda to the pool and beyond.