Articles by Bianca Valentina Roșescu

Studio Seilern Architects’ design for a private villa on the Greek island of Paros blends subtle modernism with both contemporary and traditional detailing and materials. Assembled as a linked series of standalone rooms around a poolside courtyard, the villa touches the landscape lightly, providing a beautiful and simple luxury living environment in its natural Aegean setting.

The house is largely a depiction of a fusion of the client’s lifestyle requirements shaped through the design ideology. The clients were a family consisting of three generations (a couple, their parents, and two children) with a simple brief of wanting to be on the same level so that they would be around the young kids and have spaces to entertain their guests additionally. This meant to have distinct spaces for each generation and yet, integrate them on the same level inside, as well as with the outdoor spaces.  Here, we re-interpret the perception of courtyards, basements, and shelters. The idea of shelter has been translated as a large overhang, trying to complement and extend the shelter of the existing trees on site.

The house “Hiža Mišljenova” was built in the village of Puhovac, specific for its very connected community of a couple of families, but also for the old tombstone “Guest Mišljen” that was found there. The client himself is a publisher originally from Puhovac, who has been promoting Bosnian traditions for a while, but with Hiža Mišljenova he brings back the values of the old Bosnian house. The original idea was the reconstruction of an old small family house. Nevertheless, analyzing the situation, we realized that the house was in such a state that the building had to be demolished and a new one built in its place.

The Hue house project is in a new residential area in Bao Loc city. The client is a family of five, parents and four children. The plot of land size is 5x30m, which is a very typical site for a Vietnamese urban tube house. With a large family living in a long and narrow space, we want to bring lively spaces, and natural elements, and connect people as much as possible.

Calmness in the chaos of daily life. This was the prime requirement provided by the clients for their homes. Caper residence is built around an area of 5226 sqft of a plot, with a street connection on the Northside, a neighboring house on the Eastside, and vast paddy fields on the sides. The dwelling has exposed concrete and natural brick as the main finishes. The house fosters the idea of a sustainable design by responding to the climate and context using courtyard, air movement, and natural light. The 1400 sqft comprises two blocks- the private zone on the north-south axis and the semi-private zone inclined at an angle of 10 degrees. The spatial organization comprises of two levels with living rooms and a dining area, four bedrooms, and a double-height open courtyard.

The rural municipal building is located in the southern part of the central park of Saue giving it a logical and dignified closure. Viewed from the outside, the office and administrative building seem like a pavilion in the public park. The contradiction between the privacy and the prominent public location of the work environment is solved by a double-skin façade. On the one hand, the archaic covered archway carved into the laconic triangular volume gives the building its administrative prominence in the local urban context but at the same time functions also as a public shelter in the park and ensures sun protection for the interior spaces.

Permeable is a biological term, which in this case is intended as breaking the boundary between two different or even opposite things. This is a fundamental concept of Keputih Boarding House Volume 6, which is in taxa (ambiguous) condition, both generally and in detail, as well as emphasizing its Nusantara aspect. This boarding house is, indeed, designed with a pattern that penetrates each other. Two things that seem separated can become one, blended or penetrated, to make the seen boundaries unclear. In the boarding house context, these two things can be theory and practice, action and reaction, rational and irrational, solid and void, outside and inside, and many other things.