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PRAGUE VILLA

• Prague, Czech Republic
• Drawings complete; Construction cancelled
• 6,000 Square Feet
• Selected Media: Next Generation Architecture: Folds, Blobs and Boxes; Versioning: AD vol.72; l
• SystemArchitects: Douglas Gauthier and Jeremy Edmiston; Jorge Fontan, Henry Grosman, Pinto Jakov, Josef Jelinek, Ginny Hyo-jin Kang, Ioanna Karagiannakou
• Lewis & Hickey, Prague, Consulting Architects and Engineers
• Towns Wade Construction s.r.o.

This villa was designed for a family of four in the Prague 6 District of the Czech Republic. Located on a .80 hectare site within a preservation forest, the house was subject to strict environmental controls: limited areas of construction, no run-off contaminants, erosion prevention conditions, protection of indigenous trees and fauna, and protection of existing views. Partially as a response to these restrictions and partly as a design choice, the house sits nestled into the hill, responding to the existing slope and creating its own, new slope. The house has four bedrooms, four and a half bathrooms, a guest apartment, a chef’s kitchen, a rec-room, dining and living areas, two offices, a Kino room, and roof terraces. There is also a separate garage and pool house that are embedded in the lower slope of the hill.

In addition to serving as home to the family, the house also serves as a display space for an important collection of Soviet Socialist posters. Because of the fragile nature of the posters, their sensitivity to light exposure was crucial in the material choices for the house; they need light to be seen but any direct sunlight would fade and slowly destroy them. The architect's solution, then, was to construct the walls from a translucent onyx which would bathe the house in a gentle and warm light but would prevent harsh sunlight from harming the artworks.

All content © 2011 GAuthier Architect P.C.