Excerpt: House 3.5 x 17 by Story Architecture is a spacious, peaceful residence designed on a compact plot. The house features a spacious first floor with a living room, worship area, and mezzanine with a skylight, ensuring sanctity. The upper floors have bedrooms with large balconies for relaxation, and a rooftop terrace with a small swimming pool offers city centre views. The house is designed for maximum usable space and communication between floors.
Project Description
[Text as submitted by architect] House project 3.5 x 17 is located in District 7, Ho Chi Minh City. The house serves a family, including a husband and wife and two sons. After many years of working and contributing to society, the homeowner has accumulated enough money to build a small house so that he can slow down and choose a job that can be done at home, so that they can drink tea and coffee together every day in the morning and listen to music. The conversation evokes memories of student days with many beautiful memories.
The homeowner wanted a house with a bit of nostalgia, lots of space to relax over coffee, read a book, and chat together, an airy and light space that must also have a swimming pool, an elevator, and parking space, 3 bedrooms with a private bathroom, a living room and worship area, a kitchen and dining room, and a shared bathroom. But with a land area of 59.5 m2, that makes it a difficult task for architects.
The first floor of the house has enough space for cars and motorcycles. The living room is combined with the worship area; the worship area above is a skylight to ensure sanctity. Stairs and elevators are located at the end of the house to give each floor the largest usable area possible. The kitchen and dining room are brought to the mezzanine. The mezzanine has a skylight that can look down into the garage area and entrance hall, so the user can cook and look after the house at the same time.
The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th floors each have 1 bedroom with a private bathroom; the bathroom is designed with glass walls to help reduce occupied wall space; and all bedrooms have large balconies to create green space that can be used as a place to relax. The balconies are hollowed out on each floor in different positions, creating interest for the facade and also serving as a place for communication between floors. The rooftop terrace is equipped with a laundry area and a small swimming pool with views of the city center.
The back of the staircase is covered with wind encaustic tiles, a popular type of tile in the locality, creating convection ventilation without being hit by rain and combining glass panels to let in light to create windows looking up at the sky.
The walls of the facade of the atrium are covered with ancient bricks, which are bricks from old houses. After dismantling the walls, the intact bricks will be cut into three thin slices and then re-tiled in the new house. The remaining walls are painted gray cement, and dark wood paneling creates a rustic and emotional feel. The floor and interior items also use rustic wood grain colours to create a warm, intimate feel for the house.
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