Thong Dong House / H

+ 25

Text description provided by the architects. This live-work unit is for a young family of four to carry out their home business of a spa and raise the kids. Despite being constrained by a small building footprint and compact program, the living space is designed to feel open and airy with fewer walls. The design concept is to create a path that allows the user to stroll from space to space, traveling up, down, and around the atrium. The vertical expansion of space through the atrium is intended to add the time effect that will shape the experience of the walk.

All the levels are open to a central atrium, which serves as a space vertical connector. It comes with a cooling pond at the ground level, and a large skylight directly above the pond to bring in plenty of natural light washing down the space and to experience the transition of space and time as a person walking throughout the day.

Work and live functions are separated by the levels and connected by the atrium. The business of the spa is operated on levels one and two, the family occupies levels three and four. The kitchen/dining is where the business and private residence meet.

Features: atrium, cooling pond, mezzanine, open interior for passive ventilation, clean layout, large operable room divider, white color wall-to-ceiling, openings arranged to catch a cool summer breeze, reading/flex space and to allow air to circulate and refresh to every corner of the house. In the urban context of the project's site, which is a hodgepodge of various incoherent appearances from each building, The Strolling House emerges as quiet, simple, and candid in its approach.