Family house under Ještěd

Investor's Requirements

A house for a four-member family, maximum use of the plot as a residential garden, sunny orientation of the residential garden, privacy, a view of Liberec and Jizera Mountains, parking away from the house, modest and unconventional appearance of the house, sunny orientation of living rooms, open interior layout, combination of traditional building materials with unconventional materials in the interior, low energy consumption, use of alternative energy sources.

Situation

The plot with a new family house is located on the eastern slope of the Ještěd ridge in the outskirts of Liberec with a rather scattered and heterogeneous development.
The house is situated in the northwest part of the slightly sloped plot. The location in the upper corner of the plot allows for the use of a large part of the plot as a sunny residential garden, gaining sufficient distance from the neighboring plots and from the driveway from the south, creating an intimate environment and retaining the view from the house of Liberec.
The access to the plot and the house is via a driveway from the south. Parking is intentionally separated from the family house just behind the entrance to the investor's plot. Here, there is a paved area for three uncovered parking spaces and a facility for gardening equipment. In the future, there are plans to build two covered parking spaces adjacent to the garden shed. A meandering pedestrian path leads from the parking spaces along the southern and western boundaries of the plot to the family house.

Layout

The entrance to the house is from the south side along a guiding concrete wall at the western boundary of the plot.
On the ground floor of the house, there are entrance areas and the day area of the house. The entrance areas, i.e., the entrance foyer and the wardrobe, are oriented to the west, the stair hall is located at the center of the layout, the technical room, and the bathroom are oriented to the north. The living space - kitchen, dining room, living room, playroom is oriented to the south and east. This space can be connected or separated by glass sliding partitions with the stair hall, creating an even larger open space, in the center of which is a dominant fireplace with stairs. Two living terraces extend from the living space, the eastern one with an exit from the living room and the southern one with an exit from the playroom.
The sleeping area on the upper floor consists of the same central stair hall, the parents' bedroom with a wardrobe, a study or a guest room, bathroom, toilet, and a relatively spacious southern children's room, which can be divided based on the children's needs into a shared bedroom and living area or two smaller rooms with their own entrances.

Expression of the House

The shape of the house approaching a cube is given by the energy concept of the house and the owners' requirements for a simple modest expression of the house. The house is an elementary two-story mass in a square footprint, which is pierced by prominent glass walls on the ground floor and a ribbon window on the upper floor. To the east and south, concrete walls rise from the house defining the space of the residential garden. The material solution is also modest - the house is clad with deeply stained wooden cladding placed vertically in combination with a concrete skim on the non-exposed western and northern façade and visible concrete on the mentioned concrete walls. Windows, doors, and glass walls have aluminum frames. The shading is provided by external horizontal blinds.
In the same stylistic form as the house, a shed for gardening equipment is also built, hence a simple cubic shape with wooden cladding.

Construction

The foundation conditions at the construction site were relatively complex. The cause was the occurrence of gray clays and consequently insufficiently load-bearing foundation joints. The house is founded on foundation strips of plain concrete on compacted gravel-sand cushions with drainage of the foundation joints.
The structural system of the house is wall-based - the load-bearing outer walls are made of Porotherm bricks, internal load-bearing walls of exposed reinforced concrete, and partitions again from Porotherm.
The wall in the first floor is reinforced by a doubly tensioned reinforced concrete ceiling slab and in the second floor by a concrete ring beam. In the first floor, a reinforced concrete slab is cantilevered over the main entrance; the thermal bridge above the cantilevered part is interrupted using Iso-beams. In the places above the glass walls, the slab is raised by reinforced concrete lintels.
The ceiling above the second floor is also the roof formed by wooden beams placed at an incline and anchored on the sides to the ring beam. Above the middle load-bearing wall and above the interrupted parts of this wall, wooden beams are placed on steel trusses made from two welded UPN profiles. Between the beams, the roof structure is insulated with mineral fiber boards. The flat roof is a ventilated double-skin system, and the roofing on the full-surface sheathing consists of asphalt SBS-modified sheets with slate chippings. The flashing of the eaves, cornices, and roof edging is made of plastisol-coated sheet metal.
A part of the internal staircase from the first floor to the second floor consists of wooden treads with metal side stringers, while part is made of monolithic reinforced concrete with poured treads.
The outer walls are sandwich walls with a contact thermal insulation system with mineral insulation and an external façade cladding made of vertical boards or a cement skim.
The internal plaster on the brick walls is smooth plaster. In the bathrooms, on the toilet, and behind the kitchen countertop, concrete skims are applied. The surface layers of the floors are floating floors with wooden veneer, concrete skims, and carpets.

Technical Equipment

The building is served by a wastewater treatment plant with infiltration for drainage, and for heating of domestic hot water, there is an electric heater located in the technical room. The heat source is a ground-water heat pump; in transitional periods and for additional heating, a central fireplace is used. Central heating operates as a hot water heating system with forced circulation. Underfloor heating is installed in the bathrooms and kitchen.