Tasked with accommodating local design guidelines and their clients’ desire for something different, the new house features a pitched roof, deemed essential in this residential neighbourhood. However, as nearby properties demonstrated such a wide range of shapes and styles, the architects had free reign over the ultimate form.
The final structure takes the shape of an aerodynamic wedge, clad in black sheet metal, perched above the sloping site on slender columns. Beneath this ‘levitated body’, a completely glazed garden level adds to the sensation of flight. The architects explicitly referenced the faceted surfaces and pointed menace of the F117 Stealth Fighter and other high-tech aerospace devices, with an automated sunshade system that allows the ‘points’ of the wedge to fold up or down depending on the angle of the sun.
The house is divided into three elements, a submerged cellar, a garden level containing a kitchen and family room, punctuated by structural columns, and three bedrooms, a study and two bathrooms in the ‘flying’ form up top.
On the one hand, the architects are keen to point out that Haus F is ‘completely normal pitched roof house,’ and as such conforms to all necessary local codes. On the other hand, the formal division of function has resulted in a dramatic series of shapes
The landscaping features a scattering of architectural features, cascading away from the house, including a sunken concrete swimming pool and new terracing.
Le Corbusier once described the monumental forms of early airliners as the true wonders of the age, but we doubt even he had would have envisaged the domestic house as a stealthy sibling of a billion-dollar war plane.
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