Step Level House

The client, a bilingual family (Slovene-English), requested in the brief design of two different living room areas, one as a reception and guest greeting accessed by the street level and another for daily family life in the garden’s lower level. In that way, the stepped geometry of the house is evident in the programmatic organization as well. Ground floor level is intended for guest meeting and eventual activities while the core of domestic life is located in the lower level, where the kitchen and living room is connected visually and spatially with the patio and the garden. First floor accommodates the rooms for the family members. Second floor has being designed as a penthouse for guests. Each main activity has an associated terrace.

The duality of functions is clearly expressed in the sections as well. On the one hand there is a typical aggregation of floors in a single family house while on the other hand the voids for the garage and the terraces hollow the building in two parts while visually connecting the gardens in the back, the different terraces of the house and the main entrance from the street.

The resulting volume is wrapped in a perforated brick fabric in the exposed facades towards the street that act as a lattice and provides privacy while its back side is wide open glazed overlooking the several levels of private gardens. Main construction walls and slabs are all in reinforced concrete.