House of the Big Arch

Frankie Pappas

Project description

THE SITE the building occupies a place in a nature reserve in the waterberg mountains of africa; THE BRIEF a home that disappears into the landscape; that sits amongst the rocks and trees and birds; that offers animals and plants and humans equal opportunity to find shelter THE IDEA the underlying concept was to bridge the landscape between riverine forest and sandstone cliff, whilst raising the living space into the tree canopy, amongst the arboreal life the building is organised as one long thin building which slots between the trees. the shapes of the additions to the central spine are dictated by the position and size of the surrounding trees (no tree was demolished during the construction of this home) MATERIALS the building makes use of a simple set of materials which all play their part in making the building part of its landscape the most abundant material is a rough stock brick which matches the site’s weathered sandstone the ‘bridge’ portions of the building are constructed from sustainably-grown timbers, whilst glass and aluminium fill in the non-structural wall SUSTAINABILITY the entire house is off-the-grid water from the roofs is filtered through the forest black- and greywater is stored and processed before being filtered by the undergrowth energy is harvested by solar panels but more important than this, is that the architecture works with its environment to create breeze and shade and comfort which allows it to have minimal energy demands