A family house for four that makes room for the garden, for quiet and for views of Šumava.
The site sits on the edge of Sušice, in the Pod Březinou neighbourhood, only a few steps from the historic town centre and from the foothills of Šumava. We let the sloping ground stay sloping. Instead of levelling it into a single plane, we held it with low walls that divide both house and garden into calm terraces, and at the same time set out the driveway, the entrance path and the sitting terrace as separate, clearly readable parts of the plot.
The clients' brief was clear: a house for four in which the ground floor would belong to the whole family and the upper floor would offer privacy and quiet. Along with a pantry, wardrobes and room for visitors — parents as well as friends. We happened to like the same things they do: wood, concrete, glass, light colours, openness and views out. Before we arrived at the final form, we went through three different layout options with the clients — each resolving the balance between shared and private space differently — until together we found the one that fits their everyday life exactly.
The ground floor is step-free. You enter through a covered porch into a corridor, off which follow the utility room, the hall, the cloakroom and the pantry — all the back-of-house space that shouldn't be visible but has to work without compromise. From there the open living area continues, turned towards the garden, together with a sauna that has the potential to become a guest room in the future. The upper floor belongs to privacy. The bedrooms, wardrobe, bathroom and WC gather around an upstairs hall that links the floor together while keeping the individual rooms apart. The space is lit by east-facing roof windows and a west-facing dormer, so that even upstairs the house stays in direct contact with the landscape around it.
In its materials the house stays faithful to what the clients love. The façade is white to pale grey render, complemented by cladding of local timber at ground-floor level; the windows are timber in the colour of the cladding, and the roof and flashings are standing-seam sheet metal in the same light range. Stone and concrete anchor the house firmly in the ground it grows out of, and planting along the boundary screens it naturally from its surroundings.
The result is a house with a footprint of just under 107 m² that doesn't shout over the landscape around it — it simply gives it room. The ground floor offers step-free space for the family's daily life and room for guests; the upper floor holds the privacy of the bedroom, wardrobe and bathroom. The house is designed to grow and change with the family as its needs change.
Architects: Michal Rouha, Barbora Jurášová
Location: Sušice, Plzeň Region
