House in the Hill was designed by Za Bor Architects, and completed in 2008.
Located in Moscow, Russia, the home is surrounded by a vast lawn, and its interior makes use of a neutral palette and rich but subtle accents.
House in the Hill by Za Bor Architects:
“The design is inspired by a complex configuration of the landscape. The building site for the house has a topographic low about 4 meters (13 feet). The driveway entry is at the top level. A beautiful water meadow is at the lower level.
There are two separate buildings towering above the upper platform — in the smaller one are the guest suites and technical facilities. The bigger building, the house itself, or rather, its apparent part seen from the street is for public spaces. This part of the house is cantilevered and overhangs the ground floor, where the children’s bedrooms and master bedroom are situated.
The lower half of the house is almost completely integrated into the landscape and hardly visible from the road. The arrangement affected the constructive solution, for example to hold a massive console of the top floor (with overhang from both sides by 3.5 m [11.5 ft]) in the foundation provides counterbalance beam, sunk into the ground by 1.5 m (4.9 ft). To solve the problem of basement insolation the window was cut through the ceiling. Another window is on the roof top of the house. As the roof has a minimum slope to the center, the rainwater is collected on the roof and flows down the inclined plane window, falling into the gutter, directing it to irrigate plants on terraced slopes.”
Photos courtesy of Za Bor Architects