A house in Bistritza by I/O Architects

Located in a small mountain village, now a quarter of Sofia, the house is a simple volume floating over the steep triangular plot, carried on four pilotis.

Beneath and between the pilotis an open, but well-defined space has been gained, intended as a martial arts training hall hidden in the slope. A tiny service room and a bathroom for the trainees are tucked in the walls supporting the sloping earth. Initially the owner did not even plan to commute by car, so no parking space was required.
The plan is organized between the two solid walls, the veranda, the intermediate space of the stair and the small courtyard in the centre. By adding the void in the centre of the plan, the house is visually enlarged, and the different spaces are naturally articulated, with small or no need of additional partition walls. A suspended hand-woven wooden sticks wattle unifies the external and the internal spaces, serving both as cladding on the blind walls and shading in front of the glazing. In the future this wattle can be easily replaced with fresh mats, providing a feeling of constant renewal.