House HB Blends Into Slovenian Landscape
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 07.10.08
One can plunk a two storey house on a big lot in the Slovenian suburbs, "surrounded by accumulation of anonymous cliché two story individual houses," or you can "define another kind of domestic environment. The house HB is a redefinition of a specific from of traditional house, of low and elongated rural typology."
While we have not shown a lot of big suburban houses on TreeHugger for a while, the HB house by Matija Bevk and Vasa J. Perović of bevk perović arhitekti has some interesting attributes that are worth noting.
Where traditionally a two storey house sits on top of the ground, the HB house is dug into the landscape, with the bedrooms in the lower level and the living area above. In North America it would be considered a "walk-out basement" and the floor area of the house would be calculated as 120 square meters or 1250 SF; it totals 240 M2 or about 2500 SF in the architects calculation.
By putting the living spaces upstairs in a "french farmhouse" plan, one gets to take advantage of the roof structure's architecture and the views are better. Trees provide shelter from the sun.
"The house, situated on top of a low hill, appears like a transparent object rising from the ground. Despite its dominant position, the house seems to merge with the landscape.
At second glance, it also looks like a kind of prototype house, a very basic ‘icon’ of a house as if drawn by a child. The roof and side facades are clad in the same material, aluminium plates, which merge the surfaces together, leaving the house smooth, without any ornamental details. The house appears as a sign, as a model of the house."
Detailing is minimalist to the point of invisibility- it appears from the section that those slots on the roof actually divert water to hidden internal eavestroughs, which I hope do not fill up with leaves.
It takes the traditional suburban house, turns it upside down and takes advantage of the trees, and opens up for natural ventilation. Nice. ::archiweb
Photos by Miran Kambič
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Nice design if you overlook all the GHG emissions resulting from the excessive use of cement apparent in the second photograph.
It looks great, but I'm concerned about the high percent of glazing (windows).
Windows let in too much light causing a "green house effect" inside, even when mitigated with vegetation for shade. Appropriate glazing percents are around 8% on the South side if you're in the Northern Hemisphere and on the North side if you're in the Southern Hemisphere. The East and West sides should have far less- just enough for ventilation.
Also, glazing insulation values are still far below standard walls.
Still, I think it's beautiful.
Where can we find more information on this design?
How is water diverted from pooling under the house or worse- into the house?
I'm also concerned at the huge amount of fuel needed for excavation of the hill face. Far better to build on pilotis, touching the ground lightly...
How exactly is slab sided white concrete & gray steel blending in to the landscape?
Then, the big drop off on the uphill side needs a fence.
I see no solar overhang, no solar hot water heater, etc. That much glass also means light polution at night, etc.
This is a great house for rich people who want to make themselves feel better about using 15 acres of good land for a house sculpture. I live outside Columbus, Ohio and we have plenty of fancy houses on ridiculous amounts of what used to be farmland and is now acres of grass that needs mowing with a tractor. Hardly a sustainable house.
I think everyone is being too critical. This house was designed to achieve certain criteria, nothing is perfect and no house can make everyone happy. The complaint about the use of concrete, good god, what would you have them build the house out of... Toothpaste and feathers? Fundamentally, this house shows that some people are doing their best to solve the issues related to the environment and the modern esthetic. Please be less judgmental and enjoy it has a beautiful piece of architecture.
Oh, and light pollution, I don't think so, the house has a roof first of all, keeping all of the light directed towards the ground and most lights used to read by don't exactly carry very far over a hill! I don't see a 20' uplit parking light in the front yard. Relax... 'Ugly American'
First, Subjectivity: I find the house beautiful.
Second, Objectivity:
The houses uses a lot of aluminum, possibly the most energy consuming material that can be used in buildings.
The top floor is glazed in both north and south in direct desregard of logic for solar gains and losses (oh and confort).
The basement could use earth's thermal inertia for non-mechanical effective insulation- it doesn't, throwing away the potential that comes from being partially buried.
I see zero active energy devices (fotovoltaic, eolic, collectors).
Insted of a rainwater collecting tank I see a pool...
I only see a lawn surrounding the house. The trees are in the North side and are therefore useless for shading purposes.
Treehugger I love you but focus on the gazillion better (and more beautiful+original) architecture examples that exist across the world...
I originate from Ireland where it can get windy and wet in winter, well many old houses were built on the side of a hill to gain protection against the wind, it was a great idea as people didn't have much idea about insulation at the time (100 years go)