AQUA HOUSE

The family arrived with a request that was simple and difficult at once: a house where water would be the first material. The site, a low spit of land ringed by mature trees, forced us to build upward and outward without touching the shoreline.

We spent eight weeks on the gesture alone: a platform lifted off the ground and a continuous roof plane protecting it. Everything else — program, structure, systems — was arranged around that single decision.

The house is organized in two bands: the social band, opening to the lake through a thirty-foot span of glass with no intermediate supports, and the private band, shielded by a blind white concrete wall that turns its back to the access road.

Between them runs a water court that cools the air before it enters the house. It is a passive device: it drops the temperature by eight degrees during the hardest hours of the day without switching anything on.

Board-formed white concrete cast in place, travertine marble across interior floors, walnut joinery, and minimal-profile black aluminium glazing.

The interiors were designed alongside the shell, not after it: every built-in, niche, and light fitting is drawn on the structural plans. Nothing was resolved at the end.