House On the Rocks

House On the Rocks
© Dia Mrad

House On the Rocks

Karim Nader Studio

STRUCTURAL ENGINEER
Elie Turk

CONSTRUCTION WORK
Mak Builders

FACADE ENGINEER
Engineering Facade Solutions

MEP ENGINEERING
Eak Signature

PROJECT PARTNER
Roula Assaf

DESIGN TEAM
Karim Nader, Roula Assaf, Elie Christian Naameh, Yasmina Baladi, Omar Faress Darwish, Elias El Hage

PHOTOGRAPHS
Dia Mrad, Christopher Antaki

AREA
450 m²

YEAR
2021

LOCATION
Faqra, Lebanon

CATEGORY
Houses

Text description provided by architect.

It is on a spectacular canvas of grays that he desires to retreat. He chooses an inspiring site in Faqra where rock formations carved by millennia of rain and snow compose a natural inviting cradle with panoramic views to the club, the surrounding rock park, the valleys, and Beirut beyond.

House On the Rocks
© Christopher Antaki
House On the Rocks
© Dia Mrad

Seeking a total immersion in nature, we expand the existing grey canvas into man-made fair-faced concrete volumes that contain the intimate functions of the house.

Bridging across those apparently dispersed boxes, a zinc roof floats to create a seeming enclosure. But where roof happens, enclosure disappears, and where enclosure happens, roof disappears.

The intimacy of enclosure is here opposed to the openness of extreme transparency as they do not happen at once in this atypical house. The boxes contain three 'punctured' bedrooms, where every entrance at the turn of an angle opens up to a small patio with a tree, a rock, and a selected perspective to the outside.

House On the Rocks
© Dia Mrad
House On the Rocks
© Dia Mrad

The rooms are warm worlds, fully cladded in wood to create the needed double-wall without exceeding a contemporary standard of thickness.

The house is entered from the west side via a cascading staircase that meanders around the rocks, reaching to the reception platform/terrace where a long pool juts out towards the view and cascades down towards the street.

House On the Rocks
© Dia Mrad
House On the Rocks
© Dia Mrad

The southeast corner with its existing circular rock formation becomes the receptacle for a sundeck with a fire and an extended reception terrace with lavender, scattered smaller rocks, and pebbles in the zen tradition.

The overall composition - a multitude of grey volumes surmounted by a roof - does reiterate the elements of a house iconography. But it is as if nature has taken over, and in the numerous gaps where light seeps at varying angles, it is more of a garden folly that emerges this time.

The reception area is the absence of enclosure to an extreme. Sitting under a bridging roof 18m in length, its fully operable facade to the north and south creates an unusual setup for such an environment where the possibility of living outside during the spring, summer, and fall becomes the natural invitation. 


House On the Rocks
Sketch


House On the Rocks
East elevation
House On the Rocks
West elevation
House On the Rocks
South elevation
House On the Rocks
North elevation


House On the Rocks
Ground floor plan
House On the Rocks
Roof plan
House On the Rocks
Basement floor plan 1
House On the Rocks
Basement floor plan 2


House On the Rocks
Section
House On the Rocks
Section
House On the Rocks
Section

House On the Rocks
Axonometric