Barbarella House / KDDH

Curated by Fernanda Castro

Architects: KDDH
Area: 109 m²
Year: 2016
Photographs:Kim Yong Soon
Lead Architects: Kim Donghee

Text description provided by the architects. It seems that creating revenue by building a house becomes a trend. It can be seen that building a house with the maximum floor-area ratio and building coverage ratio within the legal limit is a wise way to build a house. A house irrelevant seemingly was placed at the Yongin-si, Gyeonggi-do. Although the house is relatively smaller than other neighboring big multi-household houses, the shape of stably standing shoulder to shoulder with them is impressive. The architect hopes this house born by the desire of the client who wanted not to build a house with maximum values, but to build a house for life to become a fresh message to the gray city.

In the Barbarella house situated in the Yongin-si Gyeonggi-do, two households, who are a family, is living and sharing. The second floor where the parents and younger brother live has no difference with the layout of the first floor and features an impressive feeling of space by a pitched roof. There are full of rest and composure by a space for the father whose hobby is playing go, a small terrace for spending some quality time, and so on. Also, there are an attic space for future grandchildren and a triangle attic for the younger brother who needs an individual space. The house having an identical floor plan on each floor is easy to become a simple space like an apartment.

Barbarella House / KDDH - Wood, Beam, Windows — © Kim Yong Soon

The main objective was to design a satisfying house with an equivalent feeling by considering two different life patterns of households. At the first floor for the daughter and her husband, there are a main room that can be divided by a fake wall for future baby, a living room, a kitchen, a bathroom, and others. The kitchen and the living room, which have a level difference, are not only filtering the exposed appearance from an open garden, but also resolving crampedness by a low ceiling and becoming a space for a discussion or meditation with reading by setting a bookshelf at the place where the level difference exists. Considering the possibility that the daughter and her husband is sent to work abroad in 4 ~ 5 years, the exterior moving paths of two households were separated, and there was no shared interior moving path to be rented.

It is difficult to build a character at the house where two floors were stacked. Because the house was easy to become a multi-household house resembling an apartment, the important objective was to design a satisfying house with an equivalent feeling.