The Netherland's 123DV Modern Villas entered Polish architecture firm Mode:Lina's competition in which they were asked to design an ECO house. The challenge was to design a standard residential home in a standard location that performs sustainably and 123DV Modern Villas came up with the Hidden House.
The project explained in their own words:
"In a time when words like sustainable, ecological and green are almost an obligation, they are often only used as a label. That is why one of our latest projects proved to be challenging, but also very exciting: we were asked to design an ECO House. Thanks to our friends from Mode:Lina we were involved in a Polish design competition.
The assignment was clear and simple: design a house for a standard family, on a standard location, but with a highly sustainable performance.
We had faced this topic before in previous projects, but it had not yet been used as core of the design. For this competition we were asked to be bold, to push to the boundaries of sustainability.
It took us several brainstorm sessions to find the right strategy, but at the end we all agreed on one thing: our answer to the question should be architectural. Since we are not engineers, biologists or scientists, we had to look at it from an architectural point of view: does the house contribute to the quality of daily life?
As architects, we deal with space, organization, shapes, light, materials… So we took a basic shape (rectangle), used an age-old natural and ecological recourse (geothermal heat) and combined the two.
The house is a rectangle of 28 by 9 by 4.3 meters that for two thirds has been plugged into the ground under an angle of 21 degrees! With one gesture, we created both a strong visual statement and a high performance energy standard.
Simple, strong and efficient, but not without consequence. We also had to deal with the psychological impact of living in a sloped house, underneath the ground and with little natural light.
The task wasn’t easy, but in the end I think we managed to transform the problems into opportunities and create a unique and special ECO house." - 123DV
About 123DV:
123DV designs and realizes modern villas. Their goal is to create a sense of home in a modern villa. They translate your story, tailored to your needs, into the modern form, with attention to detail.
123DV Modern Villas focuses on both architecture and interior. From product design to realization. Their disciplines include architecture and interior design - from kitchens to furniture.
123DV