+ Solar House

The project is situated on a vast and remote open land of the Lebanese mountains. There is no infrastructure yet (electricity, water and sewage). Our client wanted to develop prototypical homes that are independent from the city grid. How can we design a context free house that can work regardless of its location?

We started to think of the house as a piece of furniture, an object. Its functions (living, eating, sleeping and bathing) become modules of their own and can be combined in various configurations to accommodate the individual needs of each user.

The orientation of the house was an important element to be set in order to optimize sunlight exposure for the solar panel needed to produce electricity. This is the beginning of the conversation between object and context, for with the orientation came the slope of the mountain, and then the view had to be taken into consideration.
The Solar House at the end consists of modules in an envelope. The envelope, even though it is clearly an externally introduced element and unites the modules to form one object, then responds to the site and situates the object in its context.