Excerpt: Upper wall, Low wall by KODE Architects is a residence that seeks to ensure maximum openness while addressing privacy of the owner and neighbors. The ‘Wall’ as an architectural element was designed to protect neighbors’ privacy and provide a residential space for the users, who wanted a nature-relaxing, independent space. The design integrates the wall with the building, making it feel like an architectural element, rather than a separate object.
Project Description
[Text as submitted by architect] The target site was surrounded by different houses on all sides, so it had a condition that required a sensitive response to protecting not only the privacy of the architect but also the privacy of the neighbors. Looking at the urban context around the site, despite the existence of a large green area nearby, the houses on the adjacent land do not allow free viewing of the natural landscape, so the designers wanted to protect both the privacy of the architect and the neighbors, secure the maximum sense of openness in a closed site, and build a building that reflects the needs of the architect.
“How to open up the residential space and how to close it down?” was the core of the project, as the site is blocked by buildings on all sides and the privacy of the neighbors had to be protected. This question was the main and most important theme that guided the planning throughout the project, and in the end, the project started with a building that was built around a central courtyard. However, since the residential space was meant to be inhabited rather than temporarily stayed in, it was not possible to create a closed space, so the goal was to block the view of the surroundings, solving both the owner’s and the neighbors’ privacy issues, while ensuring maximum openness within it.
To this end, the architectural element of ‘Wall’ was used to protect the privacy of the neighbors, while planning a residential space that meets the needs of the owner’s children, who wanted a place to relax in nature and a space independent of their parents. Rather than utilizing the wall as an object that is separate from the building and merely blocks the view, the design integrates the wall with the building so that the wall can be felt as one of the architectural elements. Rather than just a high wall along the boundary of the site to block the view of pedestrians, the wall integrated with the building is divided into a lower wall and an upper wall according to the vertical level, responding to various issues required at each level with different functions on an architectural scale rather than a human scale.
Drawings
Images
