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Status
Built

Date
2017

Location

Marjayoun, Lebanon

Team
Fouad Samara
Lara Alam
Jad Monzer

A modernized Lebanese home 

Built in 1892 and a good example of the traditional Lebanese house with Central Hall, this stone house now sits almost adjacent to a road laid during the French Mandate and that split the house’s original land into two. Unenlightened additions in rubble stone and concrete over the years, and the replacement of its original turf roof with a concrete one during the 1956 earthquake almost drained the house of all its value.
When the decision was taken to renovate and modernize this family home, the first task was to reinstate its original ordered plan, and open up the the beautiful half barrel half cross vaults below.

 

"Servant" volumes

The need for servant spaces, to use Louis Khan’s terminology, led to the addition of two new volumes: one towering adjacent to house on the north, the other disengaged from it to the south.

 

Functional distribution 

The northern tower has a kitchenette and bathroom serving the vaults on the lower floor, a couple of bathrooms on top allowing two of the bedrooms of the main floor to be en-suite, a bathroom and kitchenette for the roof terrace with its great views over the meadows below, and water tanks at the very top. The southern structure has the kitchen and powder room above a staff room and garden bathroom below, and is disengaged from the stone house providing a glass covered connection and a garden entrance at once.

 

Integration 

In time, these two new structures will have climbers absorbing them into the garden, allowing the house to be read proud.