FAMILY AFFAIR

HK RESIDENCE

This project for a family house for three generations is an exercise in composition- spatial, material, and scalar; to create a home where each member can feel independent yet an integral part of the whole. 

Conceived for a young couple, their two children, and their grandparents, the house is hinged on a delicate balance of different parts catering for each generation, while also addressing the need for a variety of public or private occasions to unfold: Entertaining guests, meeting with neighbors, spending time together or retreating alone. 

Set in the North Lebanon village of Batroumine, known for its olive trees and oil-based products, the family plot borders public olive groves to the back, and neighboring village houses on the sides. 

The house is a composition of three volumes arranged as a simple L, organized along visual axes and directions that lead the eye and the body through the living spaces, to the terraces, then the garden, and the olive groves beyond. 

First, a podium of rough stone, quintessential material of the traditional Lebanese house, easily accessible to the family’s eldest members and housing their quarters, along with the family’s kitchen, central to family life. This podium is the basis of the home, its origin and core. Above it sits the young couple’s volume, rendered in white plaster, complete with its own entrance, living spaces and bar.  

Forming the other side of the L, the double-height public spaces for gathering and entertaining intersect the dual stone and plaster base, extending from the family kitchen perpendicularly across the plot to look onto the garden and olive fields beyond. 

The main entrance articulates the porous space between this wood-clad public volume and the private axis formed by the two juxtaposed blocks. Across the main entrance, another entryway pierces the stone wall, leading to a private entrance for the elders and an exterior stair leading to the young couple’s house above. 

Outside, along the main entrance wall, a long wooden bench invites the neighbors for an informal visit, typical of village life.  Inside, between two white walls, the interior wood-clad stair extends the public axis up to the living area above. 

Thus the circulation limits and suggests borders for each function, group or event. 

When needed, the grandparents can receive guests alone downstairs, or on their private terrace, while the couple entertains in the main living area or upstairs at the bar. 

Later, when the generations change, the eldest move downstairs, the children’s new families visit above, and the house begins a new cycle.

Project size: 1,150 sqm
Date: 2006
Status: Built
Location: Koura, Lebanon

MG Partners: Michèle Chaya, Georges Maria
MG Team:  Joseph Chami, Maud Kobrossieh, Farah El Atrach

Photography: Géraldine Bruneel