Family house - Lobendava

Project idea

The project purposes was final bachelors work at CTU in Prague at Faculty of Civil Engineering, Department of Architecture. The content of thesis is architectural design of detached family house in quarry. The quarry is near smaller village Lobendava - the northest village in Czech Republic.
The designed house lays in an old quarry, which provided a specific place. Object has three levels in height. Thus it is available to use lower and higher level of old quarry through whole house.
The design also reflects character of the place. The idea of work is specific for its middle part which emerges from the great soil slope. It is designed as a fullglassed part of a house and situated in golden ratio. The most representative place is a gallery for its beautiful views to water level and close rock formation. It connects interier and genius loci of whole place. The most important inspirations are water level and steep walls of the quarry.
The main intention was to design an original family house regarding to modern way how to perceive architecture. Moreover the goal is to find a quality of architecture and try to avoid common, boring approach of catalogue houses.

Project description

Detached family house was designed for the fictive rich family, which wants to live in private place, step aside of the village. It means father, mother, two children and housemaid.

The old quarry is located around 2 km north-west of village Lobendava. The added value of location is the lake on the bottom of the quarry, which uses father of family. He is the diving coach, so he uses lake as the training area for his clients. The accomodation for clients is provided in small cottage at the beggining of the parcel. The mother is Engineer of IT, so she also works from home.

The family house has three floors with the upper gallery in the middle glassed part of the building. It consists of two main substances. One is connected on upper terrace. This mass has gradation effect with the assymetrical glassed part in golden ratio. This part serves as a main representational entrance and living room. It uses primarily effect of kontrast, thanks to the used materials. The second mass is perpendicular to the first one and it seems it emerges from the soil. It has two floors and from one third it is pulled into the soil.

The main aspect of the design was to create functional spaces, by dividing the space for two parts - private and public. Thus, the first and second floor are private and its connected with the lower part of the quarry. The third floor is more for the representational visits.

From the top, there is a third floor, with the entrance from the upper part of a quarry. There is located bathroom, garage, room for guests, representational living room, with the gallery and kitchen and the workroom for the mother.

Using a lift or staircase, one can go to the second floor, where the private rooms are located. There is a private living room, room for each of children and parent's room. Each member of family has his own private bathroom. That was designed as a high value for the comfort of the family. In addition there is located also a small gym.

In the first floor there is located the room for housemaid, technical room, small wellness and gaming area for children.

Emerged part of the second mass is placed perpendicular to create a privite part behind the lake. There is a terrace covered by membrane roof and small pool. Moreover the top of this part of the building serves as a terrace with the connection from the upper living room. Between the stainless steel cables, there is a system of movable membranes. That provides a barrier against the late sunlight. The upper terrace is also connected with the light glassed bridge to the upper part of the quarry.

The large number of unusual functions and utilites provides the luxury living in a completely private area.

Technical information

Starting from the top of the house. Shed roof is under angle 6,58°. Its from the light metal. The middle part is created from the light envelope system Reynaers with the glass from AGC - czech glass company using smart glass technology. It allows to make the glass translucent and transparent as the client needs. The glass is used also for the roof of the middle part using special foil layer between glass layers, which reduce or reflect the sunlight when needed. The parts where, the light envelope is not designed, there are walls from the reinforced concrete covered by glassed cladding Lacobel black starlight. From the main frame, which bears the rafters for the glassed roof, there goes the stainless steel cables with the system of movable membranes. Cables are fixed in the beam of the second mass. The main load-bearing walls are also from the concrete, completed by light envelope. Thanks to the place, the foundations are made by piles.

The house has connection to elecricity from the village Lobendava. Wastewater treatment plant at the end of the parcel provides the ecological solution for waste waters. The drinking water will be provided from the drill hole next to the lake. The heating is provided by heatpump soil-water, solar photovoltaic panels and electrical boiler. The heating is provided by floor heating, convectors along the light envelopes and air-condition.