House KEP

The assignment for this house came from a family that has been living in Cambodia for a long time. The house is located in Kep, which is a relatively sleepy town in the southwest corner of the country, in contact with the sea. The plot itself is on the edge of the jungle, in a rolling, densely green area about two kilometers from the coast. For the first time, we designed without being able to visit the site and worked really only with very limited information and knowledge about the place. Essentially, we had only two photos and a sketch of the plot from the investor. We tried to study some aspects of Cambodian construction culture and found a typical wooden house on stilts. These pragmatically keep the house above the terrain, where not only the flood risk from monsoon rains lurks, but also the danger of various rodents and insects. Our first concept of the house was built on these principles and was predominantly made of wood and steel. However, it turned out that these materials are entirely unsuitable in today's times. Wood is incredibly expensive and steel does not withstand strong sea winds well, it corrodes. Therefore, we had to change the entire concept.

Kep has quite an interesting 20th-century history, having experienced a brief boom in the 50s and 60s when it sought to become the Saint-Tropez of Cambodia. During this period, some very beautiful modernist villas were built there. There were active architects who studied in France, including the famous local architect Vann Molyvann. This brief phase ended with the takeover by the Khmer Rouge, the ensuing genocide, and the complete disintegration of the country. The only remnants from this period are the concrete ruins of these villas. And through this exploration, we actually came to the conclusion that concrete is the material that absolutely meets our requirements; it is sufficiently robust and resistant to the climate, and at the same time, local people can work with it quite well.

So we redeveloped the concept into a concrete atrium house. The jungle, thus, has a completely different dynamic and strength in Cambodia than we are used to. We wanted to create a clear boundary between the house and nature. We decided to clear part of the plot, build an atrium house, and let the jungle once again press against it, keeping the atrium as a protected space. The house has a simple square floor plan, with some volumes shifted upward, creating covered exteriors beneath them that are organically integrated into the house. In this climatic zone, the boundary between the interior and the exterior seems to not exist; as long as you have the exterior covered, you can use it practically the same as the interior. This is how the spaces for entering the pool, a large dining area, and an entrance into the atrium under the tower were created, where we extended the volume one more floor higher to achieve a view of the landscape. Active life in the house takes place at ground level, while the bedrooms are located in separate cubes one floor higher, and passages between rooms are outdoors.

For the first time, we were building a house somewhere where we have no control over the construction. On one hand, this was incredibly liberating; instead of the desperate effort to have everything under control, we had to absolutely rely on the craftsmanship of local masters. We had to adjust the documentation accordingly; the house is essentially extremely simple, and the execution project took the form of a basic study. The entire architecture was reduced to just the most fundamental elements: walls, spaces, and openings. Thanks to the local climate, we did not deal with any complex compositions, details, insulation, etc. Dilemmas regarding the choice of materials and elements were eliminated, and we worked mainly with local materials and suppliers.