The concept of the house is creating a new typology which is merging infrastructure to a domestic space. The owner being a passionate bike- enthusiast – we wanted to integrate a continuous loop from the street so in the mornings when he wakes up and he does his early morning bike exercises he could just hop on from the master’s bedroom and do his routine, or after his biking with friends he can easily access from the street as if the street and his house has a kind of connection – a kind of direct urbanism. From the street through a bicycle lane (but also acts as a handicap and wheelchair access for parents) can actually go until it reaches its rooftop garden that feels like a garden floating to this very urban community.

The site has jogging paths access as well as in the front of the house is a garden of the village where there is playground, unbuildable land and are communal public garden corridors. What we wanted is to bring those human and active trajectories into the house and creating an experience of verticality – something that you will only experience if you do mountain biking. After that unique verticality amidst a domestic space makes this house a dichotomy of a countryside and urban scenarios.

We wanted to create this mountain experience, and to enhance is also to create these series of floating garden, with different plant species to create stacked microclimates – these elevated gardens with carefully selected plant species emulates a forest lowering its carbon footprint and articulating surprise elements. We created faceted funnels that are terrarium-like to bring in natural light in the spaces – these terrarium atriums were careful placed in areas that can create photosynthesis as well as sensual spaces with intriguing fractals lighting effects that happens in the artist’s office studio, family room, chapel and master’s bathroom – an unexpected interplay of light and shadow that stimulates human domestic life.

The woman of the house who is actually an artist and a green thumb wants a vertical terroir as well – these sectional sweeping planes and spoon are actually a functional water harvester that creates this ecosystem of collecting water for storage, mist, fog, drainage and watering plants but also are portals that becomes recreational areas for see-saw and swing-sets. Like climbing a mountain, with these set of tools that are effects – mist when it is hot and humid, fog when it is at dawn, drainage and storage where there is typhoon and enormous rain – the house becomes a funnel that reacts to nature and conserve energies needed for living but also gives back a sense of calmness and breathing – that the house becomes an ecosystem of nature and re-creating a special narrative that is exhilarating as well as nurturing – a domestic space but also a healing space.