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Architects: Veris design studio
- Area: 150 m²
- Year: 2020
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Photographs:Yana Churbakova, Sergei Pilipovich
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Manufacturers: GIRA, Artemide, Astro Lighting, Caimi, Calligaris, Gervasoni, Maria Elena Bonet, Schüco
«At a certain period, my husband Aleksander and I realized that we both need a quiet place to relax, where we could escape from the city buzz and everyday routine. Withal it is important for our son to grow up outdoors, close to nature». - designer Veronica Bagrintseva about her country house.
«Finally we found a picturesque area with a forester’s house is 60 km away from Minsk. The plot is located in an abandoned small village among old poplars and a wild pool.
To save the wooden log cabin, we choose the «prefab» construction technology. An old log house was precisely insulated into the new frame construction.
This technology is quite complicated and requires an accurate and explicit construction approach. The main building should consistently be manufactured, assembled, then dismantled, delivered to the plot, and assembled again, which requires highly detailed blueprints before the process begins.
Network engineerings are placed inside the basement. Then the screed, which is the finished concrete floor, is poured. This approach helps to avoid tile seams on the floor, which makes it look monolithic, with the natural concrete pattern.
The main goal of our project was to unite different rooms into one area, where our son could cycle or roller-skating freely. There are a few architectural options to achieve such an atmosphere effect:
- Spacious living room (which is an old log house) is a central place in the house, surrounded by the bedroom, kids' bedroom, and kitchen, in this way we escaped the corridor system. The bathroom, wardrobe, and entrance group are prudently hidden behind the kitchen. All main windows overlook the southern side of the building, which provides solar lighting all day long.
- There are no doors in the house, except the bathroom.
- There are also no wardrobes in the bedrooms, only a large dressing room in the entrance group.
- Terrace is extended all over the house. Taking into consideration Belarusian weather conditions: frequent rain and snow, the terrace is raised quite high above the ground. It provides dry and clean space around the house. The terrace fence we decorated with lush green bushes.
- Pitched roof with a height of 5,5 meters also gives more value to the interior.
The whole engineering system of the building is hidden in the boiler room, which has a separate entrance from the outside. The main source of home heating is a warm water floor and a fireplace.
All materials have been chosen with maximum naturalness: polished wood, concrete floor, slabs, colored in white color. All of these have become an ideal background for plenty of decorating details got from our trips or presented by friends. Some of them we remade from old elements of the forester’s house.
For example, a massive wooden tabletop in the kitchen is made of an old door. Braided Balinese lampshade kindly presented by my friend. The kitchen we got from our client. Basically, it had a wenge color, I recolored it in graphite and changed some configurations. An antique piano moved to us from our close friends. My husband is a violoncellist, thanks to him our home is full of various musical instruments. The interior atmosphere fully reflects our style of life: love of travel, musical evenings, and just long cozy evenings at the large dining in a warm company.
A combination of modern interior elements and things with a long own history helps to represent the family character. Austere, high and minimalistic fireplace, armchair with a soft plushy furnishing, braided lampshades, wall art, and private archives photos, laconic chairs and rough wooden table, glossy cooker hood, and stiff-styled kitchen. Sunlight and nature are very important figures of the interior as well. Depending on the position of the sun, the color of the wooden walls changes from light yellow to honey orange tint.
Purity and simplicity. It’s a «Barnhouse" interior style that is the most suitable for our project. This interior trend refers to the beginning of the XX century when farmers began to adapt their utility hangars to dwellings. Rough wooden textures, natural stone color (concrete in our case), linen and cotton, open layout of the building. However, it is not easy to refer our interior to some specific style, because it comes from the family needs, our personal vision of beauty, feeling of peace, and comfort.
As a result, we succeeded to create a truly native place, where you can feel the impact of love and family history».
