GARDEN HOUSE
     
Majka Mikulska was the project leader for the Garden House while working at Architecture Project, www.ap.com.mt

     
Private residential, 200 sqm, Malta

      

      
The Garden as a Living Room
   

The garden house is located on top of a hill in Malta in a big garden of an old villa overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. It will be used for relaxing, entertaining and as a summer dwelling. In the old Maltese villa you see the garden through small openings in the thick walls. In the garden pavilion you are sitting in the middle of the lush garden landscape.

      
The Pavilion as a Folding Landscape
   

The garden house is designed as an open structure based on the two intersecting directions of lines of the garden and views towards the sea. The planes of the existing pool area are extended to become the pavilion. The sunbathing plateaus of Spanish hard stone fold up and around to form the spaces of the garden pavilion.

      
Inside Outside
   

The structure consists of two volumes and forms two spaces under a big roof. It integrates an old cypress tree. Facilities are hidden in the walls. The main volume next to the pool has a shaded open air dining area and a solid part containing a barbeque and a storage room. In this part of the building, you sit around a large stone table enjoying the framed views towards the sea, swimming pool and the open garden landscape. The second volume is a glazed open area for a kitchen and a sitting, while the solid back part contains the bathrooms. The space is inserted into the dense greenery of the garden and offers an intimate retreat. The openness of the garden house allows the two intersecting spaces to be experienced together, creating an intriguing, ambiguous relationship between them.
The pavilion transforms the garden into a spectacular living room.

      

With the Garden House Majka Mikulska was a finalist for the “Debutpriset 2007”, the young architects award of the Swedish magazine Arkitektur

   

Team: Majka Mikulska (project leader), Alberto Miceli Farrugia (project partner), Matthias Plaehn, Edwin Larkens, Mattias Hammargren
Structural Enginering team: Joe Calleja, Ivan Krvavica, David Cassar, Charles Sciberras
Landscape design: Daine Pranaityte, Alberto Miceli Farrugia
Status: Completed 2006
Photos: Kurt Arigo, Edwin Larkens – copyright AP Valletta/ Open Work Studio

      
Copyright AP Valletta/ Open Work Studio