yoga house
PROJECT YEAR : 2023
TEAM MENBERS : Amber Shen
Shortlisted by the Buildner
A getaway house that provides you a journey for spiritual connections both with the surrounding nature and with your own mind - join us in the beautiful Lativia forest. The yoga house floats above the bog, minimizing the environmental impact and allows you to breathe, sleep, meditate among nature. The shifting volume of the house creates multiple courtyards, allowing every room to be merged into the surroundings, creating an unique experience in every room.
The yoga/activity room located in the center has a big skylight to create a peaceful environment for yoga practices or simply meditate and find your peace under the beautiful sky. Windows in yoga room provide views following human movement during yoga activities: low window for sitting positions and skylights for lying positions. The storage room next to it allows seamless transition from a yoga practice room into a public leisure space.
On the two ends, bedrooms with queen size beds and their own bathroom with skylight welcome you to arrive at the courtyard decks to enjoy a sip of tea within the forest.
The house itself is environmental - friendly: structures can be premade and assembled onsite to minimize construction impact. Sloped roof allows rainwater collection. The raised structure frame allows the least disturbance to the forest and also creates cross ventilation opportunities for hot summers. It also allows the model to be easily adapted for different environments with expanded footprint for more guests or less footprint for a single spiritual journey.
Flow, above the bog.
Starting with the most public : the yoga/activity room, gradually arrange the programs in a gradient of privacy, ending up with the two bedrooms on two opposite ends with views of the forest and the bog and a kitchen and storage next to the yoga room allowing furniture to be stored for different activities within the main space.
The shifting of the program volumes created multiple courtyards all under different conditions as they linked to the nearest program. Allowing certain activities to open up to the forest as well as brining the views into the rooms with open windows and sliding doors.
Sloped roof allows moments of skylights bringing more natural lights into the ceter yoga/activity room. Moments of openings whether on the roof or low on the wall, creates a spirtual connection betwen nature and the person in the house: doing yoga, having tea in the courtyard or comfortably lying in bed.
The house is resting on a modular, raised structure frame to reduce the impact of construction on the site. The modular system allows the cabin to be constructed in the shop and assembled on site. The structure and program planning also allows this yoga house to become a model that can be adapted in different places housing more or less people.