Global Future Design Awards 2019
First Award
Category: Private Residential
Firm: Grifffin Enright Architects
Architect: Margaret Griffin
Team: Margaret Griffin, John Enright
Country: United States
Website: www.griffinenrightarchitects.com
Another great opportunity. APR’s next award Urban Design & Architecture Design Awards 2019 is open for Registration. Don’t miss the chance, its a huge platform for architects.
Luxe Lakes Villas is a community of forty-six new residences situated on an island in a new urban lake in Chengdu, China. In this project, an urban typology is transformed to accommodate the lakeside views while also creating garden courtyards.
Connected by waterways, the new islands create an urban density that is part of a larger central district, situating the project in a semi-urban condition. Our strategy for the villas is to rethink the row house typology by deforming each villa plan at its center. Each of the six villa types is pinched to create a new courtyard, allowing views from the street-side of each property and creating sinuous internal pathways with framed views of the natural surroundings. In each villa, the movement through the space is choreographed in relation to swerving skylights that bring natural light into the interiors. The major axis of the house links the street side with the lake side along a curving spine that hides, and then reveals, the view to the lake. [Creation of private courtyards] At each shift off the path, a view is framed, or a room with a view is discovered. The deformation of the main spine of the house defines public and private spaces, divides spaces by creating pathways, and directs views of the lakes and courtyard. The form of the villas is the result of these deformations and their corollary narrative intent. Together, the multiple villa types combine to create a new take on the urban typology, one that is adaptable to a hybrid site with dense housing in an organic framework.
Sustainable Strategies: Strategic design of overhangs and day lighting techniques creates well lit, yet thermally stable environments. Openings at opposite ends of the house promote interior breezes such that artificial cooling systems are rarely needed. Energy-saving appliances highly efficient mechanical systems and LED lighting reduce energy requirements. Highly insulated, high performance wall and roof systems create thermal stability.
Openings at opposite ends of the house promote interior breezes such that artificial cooling systems are rarely needed. Private garden courtyards are planted with local plants and ground cover and contribute to the ecology of the Lake while maintaining the porous condition of the site as a means of sustainability. The garden and house are designed as an integrated whole, allowing the house to engage in its environment.
