Nabil Gholan Architects

The House with Two Lives

The House with Two Lives
© Richard Saad

THE HOUSE WITH TWO LIVES

Nabil Gholam Architects

ARCHITECTS
Nabil Gholam Architects

LOCATION
Ghābat Būlūnyā, Lebanon

CATEGORY
Houses

STRUCTURAL DESIGN
Serhal Consulting Office

STEEL WORKS SHUTTERS
ACID - NAFCO

ELECTRO-MECHANICAL DESIGN
Pierre Dammous & Partners

LEAD ARCHITECTS
Nabil Gholam

ANNEX AND GUARD HOUSE AREA
850 m2

YEAR
2017

AREA
2000.0 m2

LANDSCAPE DESIGN
Vladimir Djurovic Landscape Architecture

3 FLOORS MAIN HOUSE AREA
2000 m2

PHOTOGRAPHS
Richard Saad, Geraldine Bruneel, Joe Kesrouani, Nabil Gholam

The House with Two Lives
© Richard Saad

Text description provided by architect.

The house is set in a beautiful site surrounded by a pine forest near the Lebanese mountain village of Bois de Boulogne and comes with a wide range of complications.

The House with Two Lives
© Geraldine Bruneel
The House with Two Lives
© Richard Saad

Firstly, it already had the remains of a house on it. Though of limited architectural interest, the house had been one of the first modern homes built in the resort in the 1930’s and originally belonged to the current owner’s grandfather.

Fought over at the outset of Lebanon’s wars – the town straddled an important frontline – it had developed a bloody reputation.

The House with Two Lives
© Richard Saad
The House with Two Lives
© Joe Kesrouani

Damaged by gunfire and shelling, it had been occupied by the assorted military and militia forces and was used for 28 years as a torture and detention center. We were facing a house with its splendor past buried in memory.

It all started with deciding how to go about this ‘difficult exorcism’: whether to work with what remained, as the owner wished to preserve some connection to his grandfather’s house despite its painful associations or to start from scratch and wipe away both the connection and the unfortunate history.

The House with Two Lives
© Geraldine Bruneel
The House with Two Lives
© Joe Kesrouani

In the end, the decision was taken to do both. The ruins were gutted then reinforced and reused as a historic shell into which a brand-new home could be inserted, the architectural emulation of the hermit crab, which makes its home in the abandoned shells of other mollusks.

Cleaning up the house and its surrounding garden took 4 months of intense work. This ruin’s new ‘resident’ is a series of spartan perforated Corten steel-clad boxes.

The House with Two Lives
© Richard Saad
The House with Two Lives
© Joe Kesrouani
The House with Two Lives
© Geraldine Bruneel

Stacked on one another, they nestle in the embrace of the two remaining sections of the house but also project beyond it, both at the roofline where their aesthetically rusting outline is just visible above the parapets and at the south-eastern end of the house, where they project dramatically above a low-slung, 35-meter Corten steel-clad concrete and glass oblong with a planted roof.

The Corten steel skin changes color with time and is punctured with tiny dots echoing patterns of trees, a sort of “tree trunk ghost” projected on the façade.

The renovation added more than 2,000 square meters to the original 1,500 square meters stone house, along with an annex and guard house. Sustainable design was at the core of the renovation.

The House with Two Lives
© Joe Kesrouani
The House with Two Lives
© Nabil Gholam

In fact, the house uses solar energy for winter heating while harvesting rainwater and walls are backed with a double insulation layer. Among passive cooling strategies, the villa’s shading is designed to take advantage of natural light.

Partially sunk into the ground the volume houses a pool and an art gallery. Stretching through a grove of replanted pine trees, it is inserted in the sloping ground towards the snow-clad mountains in the distance.

The House with Two Lives
© Joe Kesrouani
The House with Two Lives
© Joe Kesrouani

Sunk into the landscape through terracing, the house is designed to blend into its surroundings. Climbing plants and vines colonize the ruins to camouflage the past, cleansing the house of its troubled history.

More than a 1000 pine trees were planted in the garden: umbrella pines, oak trees, cork trees, Lebanese cedars, and other indigenous trees upholster the landscape which also includes a rose garden. The revival of walls, plants, and life inside finally took place in the house after long decades of gloomy events.

The House with Two Lives
© Joe Kesrouani
The House with Two Lives
© Joe Kesrouani

The case of this house is as dreadful as it is beautiful. The story behind it and the testimonials backing it makes it stand as a powerful message. The House with two lives restores faith in man’s will to fight and is with no doubt an example of an architectural work of high precision.


The House with Two Lives
© Nabil Gholam
The House with Two Lives
© Joe Kesrouani
The House with Two Lives
© Richard Saad
The House with Two Lives
© Richard Saad
The House with Two Lives
© Geraldine Bruneel
The House with Two Lives
© Geraldine Bruneel


The House with Two Lives
Section
The House with Two Lives
Elevation


The House with Two Lives
Site Plan
The House with Two Lives
Ground Floor Plan
The House with Two Lives
First Floor Plan
The House with Two Lives
Upper Floor Plan
The House with Two Lives
Diagrams

Nabil Gholan Architects
T +961 1 423513 F +961 1 423510
Nabil Gholan Architects
Jisr El Wati, Street 90, Zone 66, Building 110, 2nd Floor Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon