Project: EMA house
Location: Beit Mery . Lebanon
Land Area: 5000m2
Construction Area: 302m2
House Area: 225m2
Design: 2011
This small house is designed for a couple as their summer weekend house in the mountains.  The clients requested a maximum interaction with the context with a basic program for a secondary house.
The house is inserted in the pine “forest” without any attempt to “landscape”. We chose to create a horizontal intervention rather than a vertical one thus keeping the identity of the forest intact.
The design is based on  full transparency and openness to nature around (and in) the house. The plan revolves around a circular courtyard that generates the space around it. The reception areas with the kitchen inhabit the corridor like space around the courtyard, and the private bedrooms are separated by the services.
The use of glass allows transparency and openness to the outside and creates reflections due to the different layering of glass and its curvature. The result is an ambiguous space (inside and outside) with total abstraction due to the interplay of moving reflections on the glass.