Casa Cabana / 100A associates

Curated by Clara Ott

Architects: 100A associates
Area: 436 m²
Year: 2018
Photographs: Jae-yoon Kim
Manufacturers: AutoDesk, American Standard, Grohe, RUBINETTERIE TREEMME, Adobe, E plus, Jacuzzi USA, Nite, Trimble, Vista
Lead Architects: Kwang il An, Solha Park

Text description provided by the architects. A question 'What kind of house will we live in?' is concluded by an answer 'How should we live?'. Cabin House is a house which contains the lifestyle as it is that clients want to have. Concentrating on the clients' taste and requirements, 100A associates designed this house as their own perfect house. Located in the outskirts of Seoul, Casa Cabana is a home for a couple with two children. They who like to travel, have accumulated ideas about the house they want to have, while experiencing numerous hotels overseas. The space they want to have has different type from the common private houses that people can usually recall. It should give them a feeling to travel as a space like a resort in downtown.

Before designing, 100A associates imagined a boutique hotel only for them. They intended to build a house to show a unique lifestyle and also a peculiar house where the clients could enjoy their leisure time to the full. Accordingly, 100A associates used various materials and color senses, differently from the existing tendency that they have aimed at designing only with minimum elements. In particular, a unique pattern made of bricks piled on the simple exterior is in harmony with nature and at the same time reveals the clients'individuality as it is.

Color sense, form, and lighting fixture which fill up the interior of Cabin House also keep an atmosphere of a boutique hotel. It is very different from that of a cozy and warm house. It is a result to apply new and luxurious decorations and details. This house consists of 4 floors; the first basement created as hotel reception, the first floor like a banquet hall, the second with the couple's bedroom and lounge bar, and the third with children's bedrooms. The division by floor provides the feeling like that one enters a lobby, experiences entertainments and stays at the guest room.

What greets the users first in the house is parking lot revealing dignity, which is placed on both sides of the access road from the main gate to entrance hall. It reflects the desire of the clients who wanted this house to look like a car showroom, not a house. Even more colors and materials are used at the space where they reach after going up a floor along the stairs. A dining room where they have a meal with the invited acquaintances, a pool for the couple's rest, a jacuzzi and a wall fountain show their lifestyle more obviously.

The designers say "At this project, we tried to satisfy what the clients wanted to the maximum while minimizing the elements and going through the process to arrange line, side, and details. The work to use colors and materials harmoniously that we have never used before also gave us different excitement."
Cabin House has a spacial style rarely seen in the Korean housing type. Although it looks somewhat unfamiliar, it feels like space intuitively where the users can take a rest. The comfortableness provided by this space arranged like a luxurious hotel will be the source which the clients can taste the pleasure of life and obtain the energy for living.