Self-initiated project · architecture and visualization
Mooring
A house on the lake. A flat volume under a green roof, a deep eave, and a terrace that ends out over the water.
The forest by the lake is vertical — pines, birches, reeds. Everything stands up. The house deliberately does the opposite: it is one horizontal line laid along the shore.
That contrast is the whole idea. The building does not pretend it is not there, but it doesn’t compete with the trees either — it lies beneath them.
Type
Lakeside holiday house
Site
Lake shore, mixed woodland
Scope
Concept, massing, elevations, shoreline landscaping, visualizations
Status
Self-initiated
Concept
The roof is green, sown with sedum and grasses. From the far shore and from above the house disappears into the planting; close up it reads as a clean horizontal slab. It is the simplest way to stop a building by water dominating the landscape.
The eave projects more than two meters and it is what keeps the whole building in shade through the summer. To the south it protects the glazing from overheating; on the lake side it gives a covered terrace you can still use in the rain.
The glazed corner on the water side is the only place where the house opens to full height. The rest of the elevation is closed and dark. You arrive from the forest and you live toward the lake.
The terrace steps beyond the concrete plinth and ends above the surface of the water. The jetty is its continuation — one line from the living room to the kayak.
Materials and detail
Cladding
Charred timber in black, boards laid horizontally. A material that needs no painting by water and looks better every year.
Roof
An extensive green roof — sedum and grasses. It improves insulation in summer and holds rainwater instead of dumping it into the lake.
Terrace and eave
Natural timber, deliberately lighter than the cladding. The only warm tone in the whole form, exactly where you sit.
Do you have a site by water?
A shoreline is the hardest kind of site — the building line, bank protection and ground conditions can change a design more than the budget does. Tell me what you have and I’ll tell you what is possible.