Weekend House
Island. Eight new house designs by architects from Scotland, Switzerland and Sweden for residents and incomers to the Hebridean island of Harris.
This project is part of the exhibition ISLAND, with other seven projects by Swiss, Scottish and Swedish architects: Angela Deuber, Pascal Flammer, Christ & Gantenbein, Neil Gillespie of Reiach & Hall, Johannes Norlander and Raumbureau.
The corridor like main space of the house lies parallel to the coast line and is 3 meters wide and 4 meters high. The room has three windows: one with a view towards the hillside at the back of the house, one in a short, east elevation, and one facing the sea which opens only to the sky. The one direct view of the sea lies along the mid axis of the house toward the south-east following the coastline.
The modest bedrooms are attached to the principal space and address the sea directly. Their floor-level is the same height as the surround-
ing terrain - 40cm above the living room floor. These rooms have var- ied fragmented spatial geometries, sizes and structural openings. They are connected, just as the exterior space is, to the main living room through a single opening in what is ostensibly an external wall.
The public and private part of the house are radically different in character. While the living area is archetypically internal in char- acter, the sleeping area is practically outside. A hanging column in a triangular niche of the main space and an external wall in front of the bedrooms connect the two spaces within a greater and endless order.
