Garden house in the city – integrating the park inside

Landed
Balcony, Dining Room, Entrance, Garden, Kitchen, Living Room
Green, Modern

The global lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in many rediscovering and embracing the comforts of home. This garden house is inspired by the notion of bringing nature back to urban living, Christos Pavlou Architecture envisioned a two-story residence in Nicosia, Cyprus filled with pockets of green open spaces in the effort to improve living conditions and maintain urban biodiversity by encouraging the return of local bird species and bees.

Green spaces rehashed

Rehashing the traditional concept of green spaces, the architects adopt a design approach to unify the relationship between the neighbourhood, the private garden and the public park. The concept is achieved by incorporating pockets of green spaces indoors in the absence of walls. To integrate the greens spaces harmoniously indoors, fully glazed walls are used on one side, thereby forming a visual continuation of the adjacent public green area.

Urban elements such as building, street and public space are not treated as absolute activities in isolation but as one single homogeneous configuration as the house becomes part of the park and the park is included in the house.

A garden house incorporating its surrounding lush landscape

The integration of green areas into the 182 square metre house incorporates the planting of gardens on 60% of the ground floor, the use of green terrace on the first floor, the provision of bee-friendly landscapes and 40 kinds of native wildflowers.

All areas inside flow on the outer spaces and are organized around a green central courtyard placed in-between two white cubic volumes. Making space for nature in the city not only brings beauty to the urban fabric but encourages the return of local bird species and bees maintaining thus urban biodiversity; furthermore, it promotes human health and well-being.

Photography by Charis Solomou