Arriving at a place always demands a careful reading of the elements that shape its reality. In this case, that first encounter revealed conditions that felt insufficient to support an architecture with the ambition to surprise and endure. A flat topography, a rectangular plot and a pine forest as the only backdrop offered little from which to construct such a narrative. It became necessary, then, to imagine a complex interior world capable of engaging with a newly created exterior landscape.
Thus, the house—required by the client to present a bold yet understated presence toward the outside—unfolds through a vertical relationship between a subtly modified ground plane and a raised horizontal plane where a secret garden extends the life of the home.
Within this framework, the normative setback areas are reinterpreted as opportunities to redefine the perimeter and expand the domestic realm. The house is traversed in all directions, amplifying the lived experience, while the entrance is defined by a first secret courtyard, entirely closed to the exterior. This courtyard organizes the connection between upper and lower floors through a system of intentionally displaced staircases that refuse vertical alignment, heightening the interior complexity.
The access route, initially oriented east to west, turns at a key moment to reveal a space that stretches both horizontally and vertically: the level where the pool wraps around the living room, and a planter draws the exterior greenery into the core of the home, structured around the continuous living–kitchen space. This horizontal plane extends the boundaries of the house toward an enclosed garden where the pool appears to merge with the interior, while the pine canopies carve a skyline of inhabited air.
The decision to split the staircases—one leading to the basement, the other to the upper levels—creates a tall and narrow vertical void. The stair connecting the ground floor to the basement aligns, one level above, with the stair linking the first floor to the attic space. Together, they generate a surprising element that stretches the east–west axis within a house otherwise marked by a strong north–south reading dictated by the geometry of the plot.
This vertical tension enriches the interior and reveals, on the basement level, a generous space below grade connected to the outside through skylights that capture the early morning light and maintain a visual relationship with the pine canopy. From the transverse stair, the basement unfolds: first the service area, followed by a large multi-purpose space, the garage and the necessary storage rooms.
On the ground floor, the second, lighter staircase ascends to a large exterior void overlooking the pool and the planter beside the living–kitchen area. From here, a gallery is formed, hosting the children’s bedrooms in relation to the double-height living space. Between the two rooms rises the staircase aligned above the basement stair, leading to the attic. At the prow of this upper floor lies the main bedroom, accompanied by a small interior patio framing the pine forest that defines the site.
Finally, from the attic level, two study spaces overlook both the near and distant landscape, becoming a kind of lighthouse that maintains a visual dialogue with the void perceived from the entrance. Multiple perspectives, shifting diagonals and layered spatial sequences allow a new way of inhabiting a place where an initially unremarkable plot and ordinary topography become the basis for exploring limits and constructing an entirely new architectural reality.
