AGi Architects have created the “Secret House” in Kuwait.
Project description
Kuwait’s urban fabric mainly consists of detached single-loved ones homes highlighting a clear example of city-sprawl. To adapt to the desert climate, the distances in between the constructed volumes are minimal, resulting in shaded spaces between homes. These spaces that operate effectively as temperature regulators outcome in facades with tiny privacy and restricted views. This creates an added challenge to create projects with character that are not primarily based purely on an exercise in façade design and style.
Given these circumstances, our concentrate was to design and style a property that expresses the clients’ needs, clearly marking the buffers and transitions that any guest could understand. There are guided routes, hidden regions, exposed regions that are all expressed through the architecture, rather than signage. We want the house from the street to be observed as a resounding permeable volume, that is not transparent, nevertheless friendly however private.
Physical barriers can be seen in varying degrees impeding passage or vision to attain the huge opening on the upper terrace that makes it possible for you to see through the house. From the inside, the barriers turn out to be the volumes that open onto the guests, the rooms that dominate the spaces on the upper levels, defining the spaces below them.
The search for an understanding of the nature of an Islamic family members culture living with a Western way of life has shaped the overlap of ideas and is reflected in the relevance of the main pieces in the facade, privacy and sun protection.
This home was a really peculiar request. Usually the client has a particular program and an actual internet site, and our job is to make the two complement one particular an additional. In the case of the Secret Home, the client was occupying the offered website in a home that neither met their aesthetic desires, nor their programmatic wants. This style hence becomes a private expression of their present situations, and at the same time creates a space capable of holding their hopes for the future.
It is a spot with excellent prospective, with fantastic views of the city, and a loved ones who wants privacy. We plan to style a system that would unify these needs: a house that appears towards the inside and only at the prime level opens up to views towards the skyline of the city.
In this case we had only one street-facing facade, and only from there could one appear onto the horizon without being noticed. We have placed a lot more public activities on the ground floor, where as you enter, you discover a guest living location that is away from the other rooms. On the other side, soon after a circulation buffer, you find access to a family members living area that connects the backyard with the central garden.
On the upper floor, rooms are positioned according to privacy and importance, alternating with places for everyday family use. From this level, a staircase runs by means of the courtyard and leads up to a far more private space with a massive covered terrace that opens out on the primary façade. This permits you to take pleasure in both the city skyline and the sea view at the horizon in a private, shaded and lush landscaped location.
Architecture: AGi ArchitectsPhotography: Nelson Garrido