© Christian van der Kooy

• Architects: VVKH architecten
• Location: Doornweg, 2243 GS Wassenaar, The Netherlands
• Design: Ronald Knappers
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Christian van der Kooy

• Project Team: Ronald Knappers, Mark Verdoold, Hans Schepman
• Landscape Architect : West 8, Adriaan Geuze
• Structural Engineer : Breed Integraal Ontwerp
• Advisor: ingenieursbureau Halmos
• Building Contractor : bouwbedrijf Kon

© Christian van der Kooy

From the architect. A dense forest opens to a dune valley. Sunlight casts shadows of branches and leaves against tree trunks. In the distance, a golfer walks through the empty surreal landscape. This unique environment – trees, light and dunes – influences the design of “villa Meijendel” in such a way as if it has sculpted the house.

This in concrete constructed house is literally built into the dunes. The entrance is on the midlevel, where an office and two bedrooms are situated. The next level opens to a huge living room and kitchen. On ground level are a wellness room and the master bedroom. Encapsulated in the dune is a garage and technical room. The concrete construction of the villa establishes the vigorous character of the house.

All materials are unpolished: concrete, steal, wood, burned wood and anodised aluminium. They refer to the unspoiled landscape. The burned wood at the exterior, and the wood used for the ceiling of the main space is Douglas-Fir, a specific wood type growing in coastal areas. In the flat sawn pieces used for the interior of the house, the wood exhibits wild grain patterns. The burning procedure, influenced by Japanese tradition, conserves the wood in a particular way. The blackened façade seems to change by the light. Sometimes the house is almost invisible against the dark edge of the forest, sometimes it sparkles in the sunlight because of the glittering charred wood as such forming a background for the play of shadows of tree trunks and branches. The villa hides and reveals itself in the landscape.

© Christian van der Kooy

Level 1

© Christian van der Kooy

Regulations stipulated that only a small and compact volume was allowed to be built on this relatively narrow parcel, on the edge of nature reserve Meijendel. Therefore, the house is half buried in a high dune, with the effect that every side of the house can be experienced in a different way. This is enhanced by the contrast between open and closed facades. The height difference of the dune and the various split levels inside the house create interesting spatial and visual relations from interior spaces towards the environing dune landscape. Each opening in the house has been shaped, sized and positioned in a certain way, related to the functions associated to each space and its relationship with trees, light and dune. From the living room, located at the top floor, there is a breath-taking view over the dune valley in front of the house, but through a low window the forest at the back is visible as well. In addition, roof windows provide special light effects. The bathroom is half-sunken into the ground and has a window along the slope of the dune, generating a view from eyelevel on sand and grass. The master bedroom is situated next to the garden. A set-back and an alternation of burned wood and openings in de façade create a buffer zone providing shelter. Through the opening between the dark trunks, the pool and dense forest are visible.

© Christian van der Kooy

Through an intensive dialogue between the architect and client, a tailor-made design of the house was made. Sustainability and materiality were prevalent. The house is energy-neutral, because of the use of solar panels, heat pumps and the monolith concrete structure. Every detail, such as door handle or stairs, is precisely thought through and designed.  Villa Meijendel is a fascinating artefact, a sort of wooden forest hut fully integrated in the landscape and with a strong connection between the interior spaces and immediate surroundings. Trees, light and dunes have sculpted this remarkable house.

© Christian van der Kooy

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Courtesy of marte.marte architects

• Architects: marte.marte architects
• Location: Treietstraße 27, 6830 Rankweil, Austria
• Area: 303.94 m2
• Project Year: 2014
• Photographs: Courtesy of marte.marte architects

• Client: Dr. Robert Griss
• Master Builder: Thöni Hoch- und Tiefbau GmbH & Co KG
• Carpentry: Nesensohn Holzbau

• Electrical Work: Elektro Hartmann

• Tinsmith Work: Entner-Dach GmbH & Co.KG
• Wondow Construction: Hartmann Fensterbau GmbH
• Plumbing: Markus Stolz GmbH & Co KG

Courtesy of marte.marte architects

Sturdy, earthy, yet subtly sophisticated, the “Griss Equine Veterinary Practice” is located where the village of Rankweil (A) meets the wide Rhine Valley. On the horizon, the rugged peaks of the Alpstein massif pierce the sky. 

Courtesy of marte.marte architects

Floor Plans

Courtesy of marte.marte architects

The clear-lined building, made of rough reinforced concrete and untreated wood, is home to animals as well as humans. An apartment for the veterinarian is combined under one roof with the equine practice – including an in-house pharmacy, treatment rooms, lab and stables – in such a functional way that the private and public areas are able to coexist without any problem: In short, a finely tuned interaction between work and life, a place of bustle and wellness, both functional and comfy. 

Courtesy of marte.marte architects

To arrange all these different rooms on just one floor with a surface of 27 x 19 meters and still build it as one unit, the pavilion principle was applied. A base plate, a reinforced concrete floor of the same size and four solid vertical concrete wall plates – turned towards each other in an exciting composition – make up the supporting structure of the building. The partly recessed façade is made of prefabricated wood frame elements (spruce). The continuous surface is interrupted rhythmically by ceiling-high windows. A sheltered passage and a barn-like space separate the working area from the accommodation wing. The clean and direct form is continued in the interior. 

Courtesy of marte.marte architects

The clients and their horses enter the practice, which is set back from the street, from the north side. The big open sliding door, which is part of the façade, reveals the centre of the equine practice: the examining room. All the practice’s other rooms are grouped around this central point. Directly behind it is the operating room and anesthesia box, which are lined with black rubber mats. The in-house pharmacy, laboratory and office area, which is also accessible from outside, is located in the east wing of the building. All of the flooring, built-in furniture and single wall coverings in this area are made of silver fir. The warm and soft effect of this wood is an appealing contrast to the hard and rather cool concrete. The outdoor boxes, three in number, face west – towards wide meadows and fields, the round pen and the small trotting track. The above-average ceiling height of almost four meters keeps the animals safe even when they rear up and lends an almost sacred charm to this “place of healing”. 

Courtesy of marte.marte architects

The apartment faces southwest away from the access road. Big ceiling-high glass sliding doors in the living room offer a wonderful view of the natural landscape. The flooring and wall coverings, made out of silver fir, create a warm and safe environment. The glass elements and concrete wall plates are set well back from the edge of the roof, creating a covered veranda. The dominant base plate and concrete floor draw a clear boundary between inside and outside. Despite this, or perhaps just because of it, the sparsely furnished living room – which is rather small compared to the high ceiling – exudes transitory qualities: It brings the garden into the house and conversely extends the living space into the open air. 

Courtesy of marte.marte architects

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© Hiroshi Ueda

• Architects: O. F. D. A.
• Location: Karuizawa, Kitasaku District, Nagano Prefecture, Japan
• Architect In Charge: Taku Sakaushi
• Area: 237.8 m2
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Hiroshi Ueda

• Assistant Architect: Hirotoshi Takeuchi
• Structural Engineer: Yoshiharu Kanebako

© Hiroshi Ueda

From the architect. This is a vacation home project in Karuizawa.  The project site sits on the south of Karuizawa train station, its north side borders on a local street, and the other sides are bounded by the neighbors’ properties.  Before the project started, there was a good view of a neighbor’s villa to the east.  A villa in the south was almost hidden behind the trees.  No building had yet been built on the west side.  An important request from the client was to keep the surrounding buildings out of sight from his home as much as possible.  After examinations of numerous alternative designs, the finished building has a megaphone shape, with its opening facing toward the south.

© Hiroshi Ueda

One of the reasons to have chosen this shape has a lot to do with the consideration to the view from the home, as mentioned above.  As a matter of fact, from the beginning, I wanted to investigate a tunnel-like shape with an entrance to the north and the opening to the south.

© Hiroshi Ueda

Architecture is an immovable, inorganic object fixed to the ground.  It is different from organic matters such as plants and human bodies, or even from inorganic objects that are movable, such as a piece of furniture.  The difference between them are similar to that between a recorded image and a live image.  Live images are fresher, as they constantly change.  I wanted my architectural works to maintain this freshness, and this idea lead me to regard architecture as a frame that frames the scenery, residents, or furniture, as live images.  This is what I wrote in a book titled Architecture as Frame about six years ago.

Ground Level

In the process of developing ideas about architecture as frame, I was influenced by sculptures, paintings, and novels in which I sensed similar motifs.  One of them was a novel by Haruki Murakami.  In his early works, stories developed inside his closed world, but in later novels, various holes were created in his world to establish connections with other worlds.  A symbolic case is a well in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.  It functions as a transporter, with which the main character moves from the world he lives to a different world.  Actually, in this novel, the worlds on both sides have more significance than the well itself.

© Hiroshi Ueda

In this project, I was thinking about creating a big frame – in this case, a tunnel-like structure – that goes from an entrance on the north side with a big roof, to the opening in the south facing greenery.  This tunnel is just like the well in Murakami’s novel, a transporter to take the residents to a nature-filled world when they arrive from the city.

© Hiroshi Ueda

Section

© Hiroshi Ueda

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